Inverse Faraday Effect in an Optomagnonic Waveguide
Abstract
Single-mode high-index-contrast waveguides have been ubiquitously exploited in optical, microwave, and phononic structures for achieving enhanced wave-matter interactions. Although micro-scale optomechanical and electro-optical devices have been widely studied, optomagnonic devices remain a grand challenge at the microscale. Here, we introduce a planar optomagnonic waveguide platform based on a ferrimagnetic insulator that simultaneously supports single transverse mode of spin waves (magnons) and highly confined optical modes. The co-localization of spin and light waves gives rise to enhanced inverse Faraday effect, and as a result, magnons are excited by an effective magnetic field generated by interacting optical photons. Moreover, the strongly enhanced optomagnonic interaction allows us to observe such effect using low-power (milliwatt level) light signals in the continuous-wave form, as opposed to high-intensity (megawatt peak power) light pulses that are typically required in magnetic bulk materials or thin films. The optically-driven magnons are detected electrically with preserved phase coherence, showing the feasibility for launching spin waves with low-power continuous optical fields.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2012.11119,
title = {Inverse Faraday Effect in an Optomagnonic Waveguide},
author = {Na Zhu and Xufeng Zhang and Xu Han and Chang-Ling Zou and Hong X. Tang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.11119},
year = {2021}
}