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Giant magneto-optical Kerr enhancement from films on SiC due to the optical properties of the substrate

Journal Article · · Physical Review B
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [3];  [5];  [3]
  1. State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY (United States); DOE/OSTI
  2. State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY (United States); U.S. Naval Research Lab., Washington, DC (United States)
  3. State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY (United States)
  4. U.S. Naval Research Lab., Washington, DC (United States)
  5. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
We report a giant enhancement of the midinfrared magneto-optical complex Kerr angle (polarization change of reflected light) in a variety of materials grown on SiC. In epitaxially grown multilayer graphene, the Kerr angle is enhanced by a factor of 68, which is in good agreement with Kerr signal modeling. Strong Kerr enhancement is also observed in Fe films grown on SiC and Al-doped bulk SiC. Our experiments and modeling indicate that the enhancement occurs at the high-energy edge of the SiC reststrahlen band where the real component of the complex refractive index n˜ passes through unity. Furthermore, since the signal is greatly enhanced when n˜ = 1, the enhancement is predicted to exist over the entire visible and IR spectrum for a free-standing film. We also predict similar giant enhancement in both Faraday (transmission) and Kerr rotation for thin films on a metamaterial substrate with refractive index n˜ = –1. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that the substrate used in magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) measurements must be carefully chosen when investigating magneto-optical materials with weak MOKE signals or when designing MOKE-based optoelectronic devices.
Research Organization:
State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; National Natural Science Foundation of China
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0004890
OSTI ID:
1610762
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1496902
Journal Information:
Physical Review B, Journal Name: Physical Review B Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 99; ISSN 2469-9950
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Wide-band enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect in magnetite-based plasmonic crystals journal December 2019

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