Giant enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect through the coupling of $\ensuremath{\varepsilon}$-near-zero and surface plasmon polariton modes

Giant enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect through the coupling of $ɛ$ -near-zero and surface plasmon polariton modes

J. A. Girón-Sedas, F. Reyes Gómez, Pablo Albella, J. R. Mejía-Salazar, and Osvaldo N. Oliveira, Jr.

Phys. Rev. B 96, 075415 – Published 11 August 2017

Abstract

We demonstrate a concept for the giant enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect (TMOKE), with amplitudes reaching the maximum theoretical values of $\pm 1$ . The concept exploits the strong electromagnetic field localization in $ɛ$ -near-zero metamaterials to excite surface plasmon resonances with no need of a prism or grating coupler, thus opening routes for magneto-optical devices amenable to miniaturization. A demonstration of the capability of the enhancement mechanism is presented in which giant TMOKE values can be used for sensing and biosensing.

Received 14 March 2017
Revised 13 July 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.96.075415

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Magnetic anisotropy Magnetization switching Magneto-optical Kerr effect Magneto-optical effect Photonics Surface plasmons

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsPlasma Physics

Authors & Affiliations

J. A. Girón-Sedas¹, F. Reyes Gómez¹, Pablo Albella^2,3, J. R. Mejía-Salazar^4,*, and Osvaldo N. Oliveira, Jr.⁴

¹Departamento de Física, Universidad del Valle, AA 25360, Cali, Colombia
²University Institute for Intelligent Systems and Numerical Applications in Engineering (SIANI), University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
³The Blackett Laboratory, Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
⁴Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, CP 369, 13560-970 São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil

^*jrmejia3146@gmail.com

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Vol. 96, Iss. 7 — 15 August 2017

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Figure 1
(a) Schematic representation of the system under study. (b) Permittivities parallel and normal to the plane of magnetization for the hypothetical ENZ slab. The inset shows a zoom of the permittivity around their zero value. (c) Reflectance as a function of frequency and incident angle $θ$ , calculated by using the SMM. Horizontal dashed lines are used to depict the ENZ region. Solid and dotted lines correspond to the numerical solutions for perfect absorbing modes ( $k_{ENZ}$ ) and SPPs at the ENZ/gold interface ( $k_{SPP}$ ) in order to highlight the regions where a matching of both modes can occur in this system. (d) Numerical solutions for the real part of the wave vectors, along the $x$ axis, in air ( $k_{0}$ ) and SPPs at the ENZ/gold interface. The MO ENZ slab thickness was taken as $l = 0.09 λ$ nm, where $λ$ is the incident wavelength.
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Figure 2
(a) TMOKE as a function of the angle of incidence and thickness, $l / λ_{0}$ , of the MO ENZ slab for a working wavelength $λ_{0} = 1250$ nm. The dotted and dashed lines indicate the perfectly absorbing (PA) ENZ and SPP modes, from Eqs. (8) and (9), respectively. (b) TMOKE for three thicknesses of the effective MO ENZ slab.
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Figure 3
(a),(b) and (c),(d) show the absorption, TMOKE, $R_{p p} (+ M)$ , and $R_{p p} (- M)$ , for $l / λ_{0} = 0.5$ and $l / λ_{0} = 0.6$ , respectively. The dotted and solid lines in (a) and (c) correspond to the absorption and TMOKE, respectively. High absorbances with low TMOKE values are observed for $l / λ_{0} = 0.5$ , in comparison with the corresponding PA ENZ solution in Fig. 2 in the main text, while giant TMOKE values are obtained at the intersection of PA ENZ and SPP modes for $l / λ_{0} = 0.6$ .
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Figure 4
Pictorial view of the multilayer system on a gold substrate. (b) TMOKE as a function of the incident angle for five values of RI. Solid, dashed, dotted, dash-dotted, and dot-dotted lines are for RI values of 1.000, 1.002, 1.004, 1.006, and 1.008, respectively. (c) TMOKE peak position as a function of RI, showing a linear behavior with slope $S = - 25 \deg {RIU}^{- 1}$ . (d) TMOKE as a function of the dielectric permittivity of the incident medium, $ɛ_{0}$ , and angle of incidence. The dashed and dotted lines show the solutions for SPP and ENZ modes when the system is considered as an effective medium.
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Figure 5
(a) Electric $E_{z}$ and (b) magnetic $H_{y}$ fields along the multilayer structure for light impinging with an incident angle $θ = 36^{\circ}$ . In (a), $E_{z}$ is strongly localized at the ITO layer. The net enhancement of TMOKE is caused by the strong interaction of the localized electromagnetic field at the ENZ layer with adjacent MO bismuth iron garnet:yttrium iron garnet (BIG:YIG) layer. Note also the localization of $H_{y}$ at the dielectric/metal interface in (b), thus showing the excitation of SPP mode.
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Physical Review B

covering condensed matter and materials physics

Giant enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect through the coupling of $ɛ$ -near-zero and surface plasmon polariton modes

J. A. Girón-Sedas, F. Reyes Gómez, Pablo Albella, J. R. Mejía-Salazar, and Osvaldo N. Oliveira, Jr.

Phys. Rev. B 96, 075415 – Published 11 August 2017

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Physical Review B

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Giant enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect through the coupling of ɛ-near-zero and surface plasmon polariton modes

J. A. Girón-Sedas, F. Reyes Gómez, Pablo Albella, J. R. Mejía-Salazar, and Osvaldo N. Oliveira, Jr.

Phys. Rev. B 96, 075415 – Published 11 August 2017

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Giant enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect through the coupling of $ɛ$ -near-zero and surface plasmon polariton modes