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All-optical vector measurement of spin-orbit-induced torques using both polar and quadratic magneto-optic Kerr effects

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

Xin Fan
Alex Mellnik
Wenrui Wang
Neal Reynolds
Tao Wang
Halise Celik
Virginia Lorenz
Daniel Ralph
John Xiao

Abstract

We demonstrate that the magneto-optic-Kerr effect with normal light incidence can be used to obtain quantitative optical measurements of both components of spin-orbit-induced torque (both the antidamping and effective-field components) in heavy-metal/ferromagnet bilayers. This is achieved by analyzing the quadratic Kerr effect as well as the polar Kerr effect. The two effects can be distinguished by properly selecting the polarization of the incident light. We use this all-optical technique to determine the spin-orbit torques generated by a series of Pt/Permalloy samples, finding values in excellent agreement with spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements. © 2016 Author(s).

Date Published

Journal

AIP Publishing

Volume

109

Issue

12

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84988697472&doi=10.1063%2f1.4962402&partnerID=40&md5=a40c1faa8a842e1f9e07c006b3810665

DOI

10.1063/1.4962402

Funding Source

DMR-1120296
DMR-1505192
DMR-1010768
ECCS-0335765
N66001-11-1-4110

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