Project Details
Projekt
Terahertz spectrometer with nanometer spatial resolution
Subject Area
Condensed Matter Physics
Term
Funded in 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 564094155
The aim of this major research instrumentation is to establish an experimental setup that measures both local terahertz-optical properties and femtosecond charge and spin photocurrents with nanometer spatial resolution. Femtoseconds and nanometers are the native temporal and spatial scales of many fundamental processes in solids, such as the relaxation of the energy, linear momentum and angular momentum of electrons. A particularly fascinating field of solid-state research is spinorbitronics which aims at exploiting the spin and orbital angular momentum of electrons for future high-speed data processing. The performance of these spinorbitronic applications will be crucially impacted by interactions of the electron’s charge and angular momentum with nanoscale heterogeneities that include crystallographic or magnetic domain walls and device boundaries, such as interfaces. Specific interactions of interest for spinorbitronics include the Drude-like linear-momentum relaxation found in metals, spin-orbit-coupling-mediated spin flips that transfer angular momentum to the ionic lattice, or spin torque exerted on a noncollinear magnetization by a spin current. Despite the described importance of these dynamic processes, experimental approaches to resolve them at the relevant nanometer/femtosecond scale simultaneously are rare and typically technologically highly demanding. The requested major instrumentation will allow us to measure THz optical properties and ultrafast dynamics of charge and angular momentum currents in solids on femtosecond time and nanometer length scales.
DFG Programme
Major Research Instrumentation
Major Instrumentation
Terahertz-Spektrometer mit räumlicher Auflösung im Nanometerbereich
Instrumentation Group
5700 Festkörper-Laser
Applicant Institution
Freie Universität Berlin
