Plasmonic Spin-Hall Effect of propagating Surface Plasmon Polaritons in Ni\(_{80}\)Fe\(_{20}\) microstructures

Photoexcitation and shaping of a propagating surface plasmon polariton (SPP) on silver and gold microstructures are well established and lead to the discovery of the plasmonic spin-Hall effect recently. Whereas silver is often the material of choice due to its exceptional low plasma frequency and we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2021-06
Main Authors: Paleschke, Maximilian, Cheng-Tien, Chiang, Brandt, Liane, Liebing, Niklas, Woltersdorf, Georg, Wolf Widdra
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Angular momentum
Damping
Electromagnetism
Evanescent waves
Ferromagnetism
Ferrous alloys
Hall effect
Magnetic alloys
Nanostructure
Photoelectric emission
Photoexcitation
Plasma frequencies
Plasmonics
Polaritons
Silver
Tunable lasers
Wave propagation
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Summary:Photoexcitation and shaping of a propagating surface plasmon polariton (SPP) on silver and gold microstructures are well established and lead to the discovery of the plasmonic spin-Hall effect recently. Whereas silver is often the material of choice due to its exceptional low plasma frequency and weak damping, similar observations have not been reported for ferromagnetic metals. In this work, we report on propagating SPPs on Ni\(_{80}\)Fe\(_{20}\) microstructures imaged by photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) in combination with a tunable femtosecond laser system at MHz repetition rate. Circular dichroic (CD) images in threshold PEEM show clear edge-induced SPPs with sub-micrometer wavelength and propagation length of about 3.5 \(\mu\)m. Analysis of the interference patterns as well as the coupling of the optical spin angular momentum to the observed fringe fields reveal propagation characteristics exclusive to evanescent waves and the presence of the plasmonic spin-Hall effect. Our work provides direct evidence that many materials with a high plasma frequency allow for excitation and observation of propagating SPPs at the dielectric/metal interface via CD PEEM imaging, enabling magnetoplasmonic investigation of common ferromagnets on nanometer length and femtosecond time scales.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2105.12501