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Surface plasmon polaritons in magnetic-dielectric hybrid nanostructures

Subject Area Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
Term from 2013 to 2016
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 231781151
 
Final Report Year 2016

Final Report Abstract

This project proposal was devoted to active plasmonics in which surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are controlled by an external stimulus such as a magnetic field, a femtosecond optical pulse and/or lattice vibrations. To enhance the interaction between an electromagnetic field and a magnetized medium we used periodic hybrid nanostructures involving a noble metal layer (Au) and a dielectric ferromagnetic layer (in our case bismuth substituted rare-earth iron garnet). Use of a low loss magnetic dielectric allowed demonstrating a significant enhancement of magnetooptical effects with high tunability and revealing novel magnetooptical effects originating from plasmonic excitations at nanoscale. In time-resolved studies we carefully elaborated the magnetization dynamics for the inverse Faraday effect under excitation with a train of circulary polarized femtosecond pulses. We also successfully demonstrated and investigated alternative approaches for ultrafast active control of SPPs using femtosecond pulses. Here the thermal diffusion of photo-excited electron hot spots in the metal constituent leads to a significant modification of the sub-ps cooling dynamics as manifested by the ultrafast optical response. Further, we achieved terahertz modulation of light in hybrid plasmonic-semiconductor structures using SPP enhanced excitation of optical phonons in the semiconductor constituent. The results of the project have been obtained in tight cooperation of two research teams at TU Dortmund and Lomonosov Moscow State University.

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