We generate terahertz (THz) transients by illuminating a few-nanometer-thick Ta/NiFe/Pt nanolayers with a train of linearly polarized 100-fs-wide laser pulses. The transients are ∼1-ps-wide free-space propagating bursts of electromagnetic radiations with amplitudes that are magnetically and optically tunable. Their spectral frequency content extends up to 5 THz, and the 3-dB cutoff is at 0.85 THz. The observed transient electromagnetic signals originate from the NiFe/Pt bilayer, and their amplitude dependence on the external magnetic field, applied in the sample plane, very closely follows the static magnetization versus magnetic field dependence of the NiFe film. For the same laser power, excitation with highly energetic, blue light generates THz transients with amplitudes approximately three times larger than the ones resulting from excitation by infrared light. In both cases, the transients exhibit the same spectral characteristics and are linearly polarized in the perpendicular direction to the sample magnetization. The polarization direction can be tuned by rotation of the magnetic field around the laser light propagation axis. The characteristics of our THz spintronic emitter signals confirm that THz transient generation is due to the inverse spin Hall effect in the Pt layer and demonstrate that ferromagnet/metal nanolayers excited by femtosecond laser pulses can serve as efficient sources of magnetically and optically tunable, polarized transient THz radiation.

All-optical switching (AOS) of magnetization in ferri- and ferromagnetic thin films has in recent years attracted a strong interest since it allows magnetization reversal in the absence of applied magnetic field. Here we investigate AOS in ${[\mathrm{Co}/\mathrm{Pt}]}_N$ multilayers. The coercivity ($H_C$) of the multilayers was tuned either by varying the bilayer repetition number ($N$) or the sample temperature ($T$). During the AOS experiments, we first illuminated the multilayers by a sequence of femtosecond laser pulses with varying fluence, light polarization, and repetition rate. The optically affected area was then imaged with magneto-optical Kerr microscopy. Our results indicate that the optical pulses can trigger either AOS or initiate an all-optical domain formation (AODF). The laser fluence required for AOS scales linearly with $H_C$ and depends on a precise tuning of laser pulse fluence, repetition rate, and light polarization. Furthermore, the magnetic response of the samples at a varying ambient temperature (down to 50 K) and for different time intervals between subsequent laser pulses point to the crucial role of domain wall dynamics in optical control of magnetization in ferromagnetic multilayers.

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.

We have fabricated and tested freestanding low-temperature-grown GaAs photoconducting devices exhibiting subpicosecond photoresponse. The epitaxially grownthin-filmmicroswitches were transferred on top of sapphire and Si/SiO 2 substrates and integrated with Ti/Au coplanar strip transmission lines. Our devices exhibited above 200 V breakdown voltages and dark currents at 100 V below 3×10 −7 A. The photoresponse of our microswitches was measured using electro-optic sampling technique with 100-fs-wide laser pulses at wavelengths of 810 nm and 405 nm as the excitation sources. For 810-nm excitation, we measured 0.55-ps-wide electrical transients with voltage amplitudes of up to 1.3 V. The ultraviolet excitation resulted in 1.35-ps-wide transients due to the hot carriers generation and intraband relaxation.

We studied femtosecond spin dynamics in ${\mathrm{Ni}}_x{\mathrm{Pd}}_{1-x}$ magnetic thin films by optically pumping the system with infrared (1.55 eV) laser pulses and subsequently recording the reflectivity of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses synchronized with the pump pulse train. XUV light in the energy range from 20 to 72 eV was produced by laser high-harmonic generation. The reflectivity of XUV radiation at characteristic resonant energies allowed separate detection of the spin dynamics in the elemental subsystems at the $M_{2,3}$ absorption edges of Ni (68.0 and 66.2 eV) and $N_{2,3}$ edges of Pd (55.7 and 50.9 eV). The measurements were performed in transversal magneto-optical Kerr effect geometry. In static measurements, we observed a magnetic signature of the Pd subsystem due to an induced magnetization. Calculated magneto-optical asymmetries based on density functional theory show close agreement with the measured results. Femtosecond spin dynamics measured at the Ni absorption edges indicates that increasing the Pd concentration, which causes a decrease in the Curie temperature $T_{\text{C}}$, results in a drop of the demagnetization time ${\tau }_{\text{M}}$, contrary to the ${\tau }_{\text{M}}\sim 1/T_{\text{C}}$ scaling expected for single-species materials. This observation is ascribed to the increase of the Pd-mediated spin-orbit coupling in the alloy.

A polycrystalline test structure comprising a 5 nm cobalt and a 10 nm nickel/iron layer separated by a silicon layer ranging from 1.5 to 4 nm prepared by thermal evaporation has been investigated by resonant magnetic reflectivity measurements of horizontally polarized light in the extreme ultraviolet spectral range. By exploiting the transversal magneto-optical Kerr effect at the $M$ absorption edges of cobalt and nickel (59.5 eV and 66.5 eV) a magnetic contrast as large as 80% for cobalt and 25% for nickel can be obtained near a Brewster angle of about $45°$. Angle- and energy-dependent scans of the magnetic asymmetry as well as element-selective, magneto-optical loops of the hysteresis were recorded against the thickness of the interlayer, reflecting the switching behavior of the individual ferromagnetic layers as a function of the interlayer coupling.