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Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 167401 (2005) [4 pages]

Ultrafast Quenching of Ferromagnetism in InMnAs Induced by Intense Laser Irradiation

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J. Wang1,*, C. Sun1, J. Kono1,†, A. Oiwa2,‡, H. Munekata3, Ł. Cywiński4, and L. J. Sham4
1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice Quantum Institute, and Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
2PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi 332-0012, Japan
3Imaging Science and Engineering Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8503, Japan
4Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA

Received 25 April 2005; published 13 October 2005

Time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr spectroscopy of ferromagnetic InMnAs reveals two distinct demagnetization processes—fast (<1  ps) and slow (∼100  ps). Both components diminish with increasing temperature and are absent above the Curie temperature. The fast component rapidly grows with pump power and saturates at high fluences (>10  mJ/cm2); the saturation value indicates a complete quenching of ferromagnetism on a subpicosecond time scale. We attribute this fast dynamics to spin heating through p-d exchange interaction between photocarriers and Mn ions, while the ∼100  ps component is interpreted as spin-lattice relaxation.

© 2005 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.167401
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.167401
PACS:
78.20.Jq, 42.50.Md, 78.30.Fs, 78.47.+p

*Present address: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.

†To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Electronic address: kono@rice.edu

‡Present address: Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.

 
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