Description: Efficient metallic spintronic emitters of ultrabroadband terahertz radiation

This title appears in the Scientific Report : 2016

Efficient metallic spintronic emitters of ultrabroadband terahertz radiation

Terahertz electromagnetic radiation is extremely useful for numerous applications, including imaging and spectroscopy. It is thus highly desirable to have an efficient table-top emitter covering the 1–30 THz window that is driven by a low-cost, low-power femtosecond laser oscillator. So far, all sol...

Personal Name(s):	Seifert, T.
	Jaiswal, S. / Martens, U. / Hannegan, J. / Braun, L. / Maldonado, P. / Freimuth, Frank / Kronenberg, A. / Henrizi, J. / Radu, I. / Beaurepaire, E. / Mokrousov, Y. / Oppeneer, P. M. / Jourdan, M. / Jakob, G. / Turchinovich, D. / Hayden, L. M. / Wolf, M. / Münzenberg, M. / Kläui, M. / Kampfrath, T. (Corresponding author)
Contributing Institute:	Quanten-Theorie der Materialien; IAS-1 JARA - HPC; JARA-HPC JARA-FIT; JARA-FIT Quanten-Theorie der Materialien; PGI-1
Published in:	Nature photonics, 10 (2016) S. 483–488
Imprint:	London [u.a.] Nature Publ. Group 2016
DOI:	10.1038/nphoton.2016.91
Document Type:	Journal Article
Research Program:	Magnetic Anisotropy of Metallic Layered Systems and Nanostructures Controlling Spin-Based Phenomena
	Publikationsportal JuSER

Please use the identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.91 in citations.

Terahertz electromagnetic radiation is extremely useful for numerous applications, including imaging and spectroscopy. It is thus highly desirable to have an efficient table-top emitter covering the 1–30 THz window that is driven by a low-cost, low-power femtosecond laser oscillator. So far, all solid-state emitters solely exploit physics related to the electron charge and deliver emission spectra with substantial gaps. Here, we take advantage of the electron spin to realize a conceptually new terahertz source that relies on three tailored fundamental spintronic and photonic phenomena in magnetic metal multilayers: ultrafast photoinduced spin currents, the inverse spin-Hall effect and a broadband Fabry–Pérot resonance. Guided by an analytical model, this spintronic route offers unique possibilities for systematic optimization. We find that a 5.8-nm-thick W/CoFeB/Pt trilayer generates ultrashort pulses fully covering the 1–30 THz range. Our novel source outperforms laser-oscillator-driven emitters such as ZnTe(110) crystals in terms of bandwidth, terahertz field amplitude, flexibility, scalability and cost.