Ultrafast emergence of ferromagnetism in antiferromagnetic FeRh in high magnetic fields
Ultrafast heating of FeRh by a femtosecond laser pulse launches a magneto-structural phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to a ferromagnetic state. Aiming to reveal the ultrafast kinetics of this transition, we studied magnetization dynamics with the help of the magneto-optical Kerr effect in a broad range of temperatures (from 4 K to 400 K) and magnetic fields (up to 25 T). Three different types of ultrafast magnetization dynamics were observed and, using a numerically calculated H-T phase diagram, the differences were explained by different initial states of FeRh corresponding to a (i) collinear antiferromagnetic, (ii) canted antiferromagnetic and (iii) ferromagnetic alignment of spins. We argue that ultrafast heating of FeRh in the canted antiferromagnetic phase launches practically the fastest possible emergence of ferromagnetism in this material. The magnetization emerges on a time scale of 2 ps, which corresponds to the earlier reported time scale of the structural changes during the phase transition.
Authors
- A. V. Kimel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0709-042X)
- Eric E. Fullerton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4725-9509)
- Sheena K. K. Patel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5606-6573)
- R. Medapalli
- A. K. Zvezdin
- P. C. M. Christianen
- G. Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8332-3400)
- O. V. Koplak
- I. A. Dolgikh
- K. H. Prabhakara
- T. G. H. Blank (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1286-1540)
- Johan H. Mentink (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4082-1984)
- Aleksandr Buzdakov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7264-314X)
- К. А. Звездин (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9050-7782)
Institutions
- P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RU)
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics (RU)
- Torino e-district (IT)
- Istituto per le Piante da Legno e l'Ambiente (IT)
- University of Milano-Bicocca (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- npj Spintronics
- Published
- 2025-02-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s44306-024-00069-6
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.22
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- European Commission
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- Basic Energy Sciences
- FP7 Ideas: European Research Council