Mechanism for strong nonlinearities in the Faraday rotation and absorption in the ferromagnetic semiconductor CdCr2Se4

Abstract

At high laser radiation intensities a strong nonlinear Faraday rotation (FR) may be observed in a relatively narrow energy band near the absorption edge of CdCr2Se4. To study the nature of this effect, we investigated the influence of the incident radiation intensity on the spectral properties of the FR and the circularly polarized light absorption, and studied the dynamics of the observed nonlinearities. As the laser radiation intensity increases, we find a strong growth of the resonance structure at the absorption edge and an enhancement of the FR in the band associated with the resonance. The nonlinear FR is a non-monotonic function of the radiation intensity and reaches a local maximum, which is about twice the value of the rotation angle for the linear effect. The dynamics of the observed nonlinearities show that the nonlinearities are caused by photo-excited charge carriers. These carriers screen the internal electrical fields and lead to a narrowing and growth of the excitonic resonance in the absorption spectra and FR.