Ultrafast heating and magnetic switching with weak external magnetic field

Abstract

The TbFeCo magneto-optical media with the coercivity of bigger than 1.0 kOe are used for the investigation of ultrafast heating and magnetic switching with the weak external magnetic field. It has been found that the laser-induced active region becomes larger with an external magnetic field because the boundary of the active region is magnetized with the assistance of the external field during the ultrafast heating. According to this physical phenomenon, the so called “mark expansion method” has been proposed for visual observation of ultrafast switching marks. Using this method, the ultrafast magnetic switching in TbFeCo media has been studied using 40 fs laser pulse with linear polarization. The result shows that the ultrafast magnetic switching can be implemented by the laser pulse with assistance of the weak external field of about 0.7 kOe. Further studies show that the area percentage of the magnetic mark expansion relative to its thermal mark decreases with the increasing of the laser pulse energy. There exists the threshold pulse energy that the active region is fully magnetized. The theoretical analysis of electron, spin, and lattice temperatures has been conducted to the active region of the media where the maximum spin temperature is close to the Curie temperature of the media. The result indicates that the media become active at 4.137 ps and the ultrafast heating plays a key role for the ultrafast magnetic switching. The weak external magnetic field provides sufficient driving force to control the magnetization direction in the media.