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Low-energy (∼100eV) electrons have been employed for more than half a century to investigate physical, chemical and electronic phenomena in condensed matter and surface physics. A particular role may be attributed to a purely quantum-mechanical property of the electron–its spin or intrinsic angular momentum. Since the 1970s the electron spin has been indispensable in determining the role of spin-dependent interactions, such as exchange interaction and spin-orbit coupling and their consequences. Most recently, the aspect of topology and its role in condensed matter systems has given a new drive to the investigation of the electron spin and spin textures in such materials. New results on time-dependent ultrafast phenomena may become available by the availability of new intense lasers and laser-driven sources.

Abstract Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted much attention in the fields of valley- and spintronics due to their property of forming valley-polarized excitons when illuminated by circularly polarized light. In TMD-heterostructures it was shown that these electron-hole pairs can scatter into valley-polarized interlayer exciton states, which exhibit long lifetimes and a twist-angle dependence. However, the question how to create a valley polarization of free charge carriers in these heterostructures after a valley selective optical excitation is unexplored, despite its relevance for opto-electronic devices. Here, we identify an interlayer transfer mechanism in twisted WSe2/MoSe2 heterobilayers that transfers the valley polarization from excitons in WSe2 to free charge carriers in MoSe2 with valley lifetimes of up to 12 ns. This mechanism is most efficient at large twist angles, whereas the valley lifetimes of free charge carriers are surprisingly short for small twist angles, despite the occurrence of interlayer excitons.

Summary: Magnetic nanoparticles can be functionalized in many ways for biomedical applications. Here, we combine four advantageous features in a novel Fe-Pt-Yb2O3 core-shell nanoparticle. (a) The nanoparticles have a size of 10 nm allowing them to diffuse through neuronal tissue. (b) The particles are superparamagnetic after synthesis and ferromagnetic after annealing, enabling directional control by magnetic fields, enhance NMRI contrast, and hyperthermia treatment. (c) After neutron-activation of the shell, they carry low-energetic, short half-life β-radiation from 175Yb, 177Yb, and 177Lu. (d) Additionally, the particles can be optically visualized by plasmonic excitation and luminescence. To demonstrate the potential of the particles for cancer treatment, we exposed cultured human glioblastoma cells (LN-18) to non-activated and activated particles to confirm that the particles are internalized, and that the β-radiation of the radioisotopes incorporated in the neutron-activated shell of the nanoparticles kills more than 98% of the LN-18 cancer cells, promising for future anti-cancer applications.

Abstract The magnetic proximity effect provides a promising way to increase the low Curie temperature (TC) of europium monoxide (EuO) toward or even above room temperature, while keeping its stoichiometry and insulating properties. This work studies EuO/Co bilayers using static and time‐resolved magneto‐optical Kerr effect measurements, and explores the influence of magnetic proximity on TC and on the spin dynamics in EuO. Excitation above the EuO bandgap results in an ultrafast enhancement of the EuO magnetization followed by a demagnetization within nanoseconds. This behaviour is also visible upon selectively photoexciting Co in the EuO/Co bilayer placed in an out‐of‐plane magnetic field, which is attributed to propagation of a superdiffusive spin current from Co into EuO. As the spin dynamics of Co shows a transient thermal demagnetization, the bilayer provides a system where the transient magneto‐optical signal can be tuned in amplitude and sign by varying external parameters such as the sample temperature or pump fluence. Moreover, in a strong excitation regime it is possible to measure the magnetic hysteresis of the underlying EuO, which is present up to room temperature – giving experimental evidence for the presence of a tuneable magnetic proximity coupling between Co and EuO.

Abstract Molecule‐based functional devices may take advantage of surface‐mediated spin state bistability. Whereas different spin states in conventional spin crossover complexes are only accessible at temperatures well below room temperature, and the lifetimes of the high‐spin state are relatively short, a different behavior exhibited by prototypical nickel phthalocyanine is shown here. Direct interaction of the organometallic complex with a copper metal electrode mediates the coexistence of a high spin and a low spin state within the 2D molecular array. The spin state bistability is extremely non‐volatile, since no external stimuli are required to preserve it. It originates from the surface‐induced axial displacement of the functional nickel cores, which generates two stable local minima. Spin state unlocking and the full conversion to the low spin state are only possible by a high temperature stimulus. This spin state transition is accompanied by distinct changes in the molecular electronic structure that might facilitate the state readout at room temperature, as evidenced by valence spectroscopy. The non‐volatility of the high spin state up to elevated temperatures and the controllable spin bistability render the system extremely intriguing for applications in molecule‐based information storage devices.

It has been predicted that elemental Iron, with low dimensionality, will be a topological metal hosting Weyl nodes. Here, Chen et al. grow iron on tungsten, a heavy metal with a strong spin-orbit interaction, and using momentum microscopy, show the emergence of giant open Fermi arcs which can be shaped by varying the magnetization of the iron.

The increase of device lifetime and reliability of THz photomixers will play an essential role in their possible future application. Therefore, their optimal work conditions/operation range, i.e., the maximal incident optical power should be experimentally estimated. We fabricated and tested THz photomixer devices based on nitrogen-implanted GaAs integrated with a Bragg reflector. Raman spectroscopy was applied to investigate the material properties and to disclose any reversible or irreversible material changes. The results indicate that degradation effects in the photomixer structures/material could be avoided if the total optical power density does not exceed levels of about 0.7 mW/µm2 for 100 min of operation. Furthermore, the investigations performed during 1000 min of optical exposure on the photomixer devices’ central region comprising interdigitated metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) structures suggest a reversible “curing” mechanism if the power density level of ~0.58 mW/µm2 is not exceeded. Long-term operation (up to 1000 h) reveals that the photomixer structures can withstand an average optical power density of up to ~0.4 mW/µm2 without degradation when biased at 10 V. Besides the decrease of the position of the A1g (LO) Raman mode from ~291 cm−1 down to ~288 cm−1 with increasing optical power density and operation time, broad Raman modes evolve at about 210 cm−1, which can be attributed to degradation effects in the active photomixer/MSM area. In addition, the performed carrier lifetime and photomixer experiments demonstrated that these structures generated continuous wave sub-THz radiation efficiently as long as their optimal work conditions/operation range were within the limits established by our Raman studies.

Spintronic devices, where the spin of the electron becomes the main carrier of information, offer a promising avenue to develop quantum devices. The authors experimentally and theoretically investigate spin-polarization and spin-orbit mixing in a W(110) surface, and provide a mean to fine tune the quantum (de)coherence of materials by changing the spin polarization of a conduction electron in a spintronic device

We present comprehensive studies on the emission of broadband, free-space THz transients from several highly resistive GaAs samples excited by femtosecond optical pulses. Our test samples are characterized by different degrees of disorder, ranging from nitrogen-implanted to semi-insulating and annealed semi-insulating GaAs crystals. In our samples, we clearly observed transient THz emissions due to the optical rectification effect, as well as due to the presence of the surface depletion electrical field. Next, we arranged our experimental setup in such way that we could observe directly how the amplitude of surface-emitted THz optical pulses is affected by an applied, in-plane magnetic field. We ascribe this effect to the Lorentz force that additionally accelerates optically excited carriers. The magnetic-field factor η is a linear function of the applied magnetic field and is the largest for an annealed GaAs sample, while it is the lowest for an N-implanted GaAs annealed at the lowest (300 °C) temperature. The latter is directly related to the longest and shortest trapping times, respectively, measured using a femtosecond optical pump-probe spectroscopy technique. The linear dependence of the factor η on the trapping time enabled us to establish that, for all samples, regardless of their crystalline structure, the electron effective mass was equal to 0.059 of the electron mass m0, i.e., it was only about 6% smaller than the generally accepted 0.063m0 value for GaAs with a perfect crystalline structure.

We present a compact polarimeter for 3He ions with special emphasis on the analysis of short-pulsed beams accelerated during laser–plasma interactions. We discuss the specific boundary conditions for the polarimeter, such as the properties of laser-driven ion beams, the selection of the polarization-sensitive reaction in the polarimeter, the representation of the analyzing-power contour map, the choice of the detector material used for particle identification, as well as the production procedure of the required deuterated foil-targets. The assembled polarimeter has been tested using a tandem accelerator delivering unpolarized 3He ion beams, demonstrating good performance in the few-MeV range. The statistical accuracy and the deduced figure-of-merit of the polarimetry are discussed, including the count-rate requirement and the lower limit of accuracy for beam-polarization measurements at a laser-based ion source.

The discovery of chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), resulting from an interaction between the electron spin and handedness of chiral molecules, has sparked interest in surface-adsorbed chiral molecules due to potential applications in spintronics, enantioseparation, and enantioselective chemical or biological processes. We study the deposition of chiral heptahelicene by sublimation under ultra-high vacuum onto bare Cu(111), Co bilayer nanoislands on Cu(111), and Fe bilayers on W(110) by low-temperature spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS). In all cases, the molecules remain intact and adsorb with the proximal phenanthrene group aligned parallel to the surface. Three degenerate in-plane orientations on Cu(111) and Co(111), reflecting substrate symmetry, and only two on Fe(110), i.e., fewer than symmetry permits, indicate a specific adsorption site for each substrate. Heptahelicene physisorbs on Cu(111) but chemisorbs on Co(111) and Fe(110) bilayers, which nevertheless remain for the sub-monolayer coverage ferromagnetic and magnetized out-of-plane. We are able to determine the handedness of individual molecules chemisorbed on Fe(110) and Co(111), as previously reported for less reactive Cu(111). The demonstrated deposition control and STM/STS imaging capabilities for heptahelicene on Co/Cu(111) and Fe/W(110) substrate systems lay the foundation for studying CISS in ultra-high vacuum and on the microscopic level of single molecules in controlled atomic configurations.

Background: The application of superparamagnetic particles as biomolecular transporters in microfluidic systems for lab-on-a-chip applications crucially depends on the ability to control their motion. One approach for magnetic-particle motion control is the superposition of static magnetic stray field landscapes (MFLs) with dynamically varying external fields. These MFLs may emerge from magnetic domains engineered both in shape and in their local anisotropies. Motion control of smaller beads does necessarily need smaller magnetic patterns, i.e., MFLs varying on smaller lateral scales. The achievable size limit of engineered magnetic domains depends on the magnetic patterning method and on the magnetic anisotropies of the material system. Smallest patterns are expected to be in the range of the domain wall width of the particular material system. To explore these limits a patterning technology is needed with a spatial resolution significantly smaller than the domain wall width.Results: We demonstrate the application of a helium ion microscope with a beam diameter of 8 nm as a mask-less method for local domain patterning of magnetic thin-film systems. For a prototypical in-plane exchange-bias system the domain wall width has been investigated as a function of the angle between unidirectional anisotropy and domain wall. By shrinking the domain size of periodic domain stripes, we analyzed the influence of domain wall overlap on the domain stability. Finally, by changing the geometry of artificial two-dimensional domains, the influence of domain wall overlap and domain wall geometry on the ultimate domain size in the chosen system was analyzed.Conclusion: The application of a helium ion microscope for magnetic patterning has been shown. It allowed for exploring the fundamental limits of domain engineering in an in-plane exchange-bias thin film as a prototypical system. For two-dimensional domains the limit depends on the domain geometry. The relative orientation between domain wall and anisotropy axes is a crucial parameter and therefore influences the achievable minimum domain size dramatically.

Magneto-ionic control of magnetism is a promising route toward the realization of non-volatile memory and memristive devices. Magneto-ionic oxides are particularly interesting for this purpose, exhibiting magnetic switching coupled to resistive switching, with the latter emerging as a perturbation of the oxygen vacancy concentration. Here, we report on electric-field-induced magnetic switching in a La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) thin film. Correlating magnetic and chemical information via photoemission electron microscopy, we show that applying a positive voltage perpendicular to the film surface of LSMO results in the change in the valence of the Mn ions accompanied by a metal-to-insulator transition and a loss of magnetic ordering. Importantly, we demonstrate that the voltage amplitude provides granular control of the phenomena, enabling fine-tuning of the surface electronic structure. Our study provides valuable insight into the switching capabilities of LSMO that can be utilized in magneto-ionic devices.

JuSPARC, the Jülich Short-Pulsed Particle and Radiation Center, is a laser-driven facility to enable research with short-pulsed photon and particle beams to be performed at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. The conceptual design of JuSPARC is determined by a set of state-of-the-art time-resolved instruments, which are designed to address the electronic, spin, and structural states of matter and their dynamic behaviour. From these instruments and experiments JuSPARC derives the need of operating several dedicated high pulse-power laser systems at highest possible repetition rates. They serve as core units for optimized photon up-conversion techniques generating the light pulses for the respective experiments. The applications also include experiments with spin polarized particle beams, which require the use of laser-based polarized gas targets. Thus, in its rst stage JuSPARC comprises four driving laser systems, called JuSPARC_VEGA, JuSPARC_DENEB, JuSPARC_SIRIUS and JuSPARC_MIRA, which are outlined in this article.

The consequences of electron-electron interactions are difficult to calculate reliably but this is needed to understand important physical properties such as ferromagnetism. Tusche et al. show that interaction effects in cobalt are nonlocal, presenting a challenge to future theoretical approaches.

The knowledge of the electronic structure of composite material is essential for tailoring their properties. The authors introduce a method based on standing wave angle-resolved hard X-ray photoemission to determine the element- and momentum-resolved electronic band structure simultaneously.

We generated pulses of electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz (THz) frequency range by optical excitation of Co_{2}Fe_{0.4}Mn_{0.6}Si (CFMS)/normal-metal (NM) bilayer structures. The CFMS is a Heusler alloy showing a band gap in one spin channel and is therefore a half metal. We compared the THz emission efficiency in a systematic manner for four different CFMS/NM bilayers, where NM was either Pt, Ta, Cr, or Al. Our measurements show that the THz intensity is highest for a Pt capping. We also demonstrate the tunability of the THz amplitude by varying the magnetic field for all four bilayers. We attribute the THz generation to the inverse spin Hall effect. In order to investigate the role of the interface in THz generation, we measured the spin mixing conductance for each CFMS/NM bilayer using a ferromagnetic resonance method. We found that the spin-orbit coupling cannot completely describe the THz generation in the bilayers and that the spin transmission efficiency of the CFMS/NM interface and the spin diffusion length, as well as the oxidation of the NM layer, play crucial roles in the THz emission process.

We experimentally investigated magnetization relaxation dynamics in the largely unexplored time window extending from few picoseconds up to two nanoseconds following femtosecond laser pulse excitation. We triggered magnetization dynamics in [Co(0.4nm)/Pt(0.7nm)]_{3} multilayers and measured the resulting magneto-optic response by recording both transient hysteresis loops as well as transients of magnetization dynamics. We observe that the coercive field of the sample is still strongly suppressed even ∼1 ms after the laser excitation, which is three orders of magnitude longer than the recovery time of the magnetization amplitude. In addition, we succeeded to fit the magnetization relaxation data in the entire experimentally observed time window by considering two phenomenological time constants τ_{f}^{*} and τ_{s}^{*} describing fast (ps) and slow (ns) magnetization relaxation processes, respectively. The fits of the data suggest a magnetic field dependent relaxation slowdown beyond 100 ps after excitation. We observe an explosion of the τ_{f}^{*} and τ_{s}^{*} values when the magnetization is completely quenched and relaxes intrinsically in the absence of an external magnetic field. We interpret the phenomenological time constants τ_{f}^{*} and τ_{s}^{*} using an intuitive physical picture based on the Landau-Lifshitz-Bloch model and numerical solutions of the extended three-temperature model [Shim et al., Sci. Rep. 10, 6355 (2020)10.1038/s41598-020-63452-3].

Exploiting topological insulator surface states in electronic devices requires an understanding of the factors that affect transport. Here, the authors use scanning tunnelling potentiometry to determine the contributions of different kinds of surface defects to the electrical resistance.

Coexistence of a topological insulator phase and a topological crystalline insulator phase helps to maintain topological properties under a controlled symmetry breaking perturbation. Here, Eschbacket al. report a superlattice of Bi and Bi2Te3to be such a dual topological insulator.

It has been predicted that electron beam probes may allow for the imaging of magnetism with atomic-scale resolution. Here, the authors demonstrate a scanning transmission electron microscopy method capable of resolving magnetic contrast from individual atomic planes.

In this study, we investigated the electronic surface structure of donor-doped strontium titanate. Homoepitaxial 0.5 wt. % donor-doped SrTiO3 thin films were analyzed by in situ near ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy at a temperature of 770 K and oxygen pressures up to 5 mbar. Upon exposure to an oxygen atmosphere at elevated temperatures, we observed a rigid binding energy shift of up to 0.6 eV towards lower binding energies with respect to vacuum conditions for all SrTiO3 core level peaks and the valence band maximum with increasing oxygen pressure. The rigid shift is attributed to a relative shift of the Fermi energy towards the valence band concomitant with a negative charge accumulation at the surface, resulting in a compensating electron depletion layer in the near surface region. Charge trapping effects solely based on carbon contaminants are unlikely due to their irreversible desorption under the given experimental conditions. In addition, simple reoxygenation of oxygen vacancies can be ruled out as the high niobium dopant concentration dominates the electronic properties of the material. Instead, the negative surface charge may be provided by the formation of cation vacancies or the formation of charged oxygen adsorbates at the surface. Our results clearly indicate a pO2-dependent surface space charge formation in donor-doped SrTiO3 in oxidizing conditions.

The surface magnetic domain structure of uncapped epitaxial FeRh/MgO(001) thin films was imaged by in-situ scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis (SEMPA) at various temperatures between 122 and 450 K. This temperature range covers the temperature-driven antiferromagnetic-to-ferromagnetic phase transition in the body of the films that was observed in-situ by means of the more depth-sensitive magneto-optical Kerr effect. The SEMPA images confirm that the interfacial ferromagnetism coexisting with the antiferromagnetic phase inside the film is an intrinsic property of the FeRh(001) surface. Furthermore, the SEMPA data display a reduction of the in-plane magnetization occuring well above the phase transition temperature which, thus, is not related to the volume expansion at the phase transition. This observation is interpreted as a spin reorientation of the surface magnetization for which we propose a possible mechanism based on temperature-dependent tetragonal distortion due to different thermal expansion coefficients of MgO and FeRh.

Nature Communications 7: Article number: 12672 (2016); Published: 31 August 2016; Updated: 5 October 2016 In the originally published version of the Article, an incorrect reference number was cited. The final sentence of the first paragraph of the Introduction section should read: ‘The likely reasons are technical difficulties in generating atomic size electron vortex beams, together with fine control of their resulting orbital angular momentum in the case of electron vortex beams, and a low EMCD signal fraction in the case of astigmatic beams21.

In the following, we show that the conclusions of our article titled “Ultrafast Demagnetization Measurements Using Extreme Ultraviolet Light: Comparison of Electronic and Magnetic Contributions” are correct. The Comment of Vodungbo et al. argues that a unique determination of the refractive index variation over time is not possible using the data set presented in our paper. Furthermore, it was suggested that the lack of uniqueness allows for the possibility of a very specific time-dependent trajectory of the refractive index in the complex plane that could give rise to a large nonmagnetic modulation of the measured asymmetry, in spite of a negligible change in the s-polarized reflectivity. In this Reply, we conclusively show that any nonmagnetic contribution to the measured asymmetry is indeed negligible (

Ultrashort pulses of extreme ultraviolet light from high-harmonic generation are a new tool for probing coupled charge, spin, and phonon dynamics with element specificity, attosecond pump-probe synchronization, and time resolution of a few femtoseconds in a tabletop apparatus. In this paper, we address an important question in magneto-optics that has implications for understanding magnetism on the fastest time scales: Is the signal from the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect at the M_{2,3} edges of a magnetic material purely magnetic or is it perturbed by nonmagnetic artifacts? Our measurements demonstrate conclusively that transverse magneto-optical Kerr measurements at the M_{2,3} edges sensitively probe the magnetic state, with almost negligible contributions from the transient variation of the refractive index by the nonequilibrium hot-electron distribution. In addition, we compare pump-probe demagnetization dynamics measured by both high harmonics and conventional visible-wavelength magneto-optics and find that the measured demagnetization times are in agreement.