Magnetooptical Kerr effect in the near field of a nanowire supporting surface plasmons

Abstract

In terms of Green’s functions, a theory is developed describing the resonant magnetooptical Kerr effect in light scattering by a linear probe that is parallel to the surface of a magnet and placed at a subwavelength distance from it. The probe is supposed to be a metal nanowire supporting long-lived surface plasmons and forming the near field of the “probe + image” complex. The resonant interaction between the probe and the sample is taken into account within a self-consistent approximation of multiple-scattering theory, and the magnetooptical interaction is included in the linear approximation in magnetization. The problem of scanning near-field magnetooptical microscopy with a linear probe is solved analytically in the case where the magnetization is parallel to both the magnet surface and the plane of incidence of light (longitudinal magnetooptical Kerr effect). The polarization, spectral, and angular characteristics of scattered light modulated by magnetization are discussed. It is shown that the magnetooptical modulation of the scattered light intensity is significantly enhanced when surface plasmons are resonantly excited in the nanowire.