All-optical vector measurement of spin-orbit-induced torques using both polar and quadratic magneto-optic Kerr effects
Abstract
We demonstrate that the magneto-optic-Kerr effect with normal light incidence can be used to obtain quantitative optical measurements of both components of spin-orbit-induced torque (both the antidamping and effective-field components) in heavy-metal/ferromagnet bilayers. This is achieved by analyzing the quadratic Kerr effect as well as the polar Kerr effect. The two effects can be distinguished by properly selecting the polarization of the incident light. We use this all-optical technique to determine the spin-orbit torques generated by a series of Pt/Permalloy samples, finding values in excellent agreement with spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 19, 2016
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.4962402
Entities
People
- Alex R. Mellnik
- Daniel C. Ralph
- Halise Celik
- John Xiao
- Neal D Reynolds
- Tao Wang
- Virginia O. Lorenz
- Wenrui Wang
- Xin Fan
Organizations
- Cornell University
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Division of Electrical, Communications & Cyber Systems
- Division of Materials Research
- Semiconductor Research Corporation
- University of Delaware