We have experimentally investigated the field- and fluence-dependent terahertz (THz) emission behaviors by a femtosecond optical pump in Co ferromagnetic films, together with the time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect measurement. The thickness of Co and Ta capping layers has been systematically varied. For thick films, THz emission behavior is found to be directly matched with the photoinduced ultrafast demagnetization and remagnetization dynamics. The angle-dependent THz emission measurement also confirms a direct relation between the THz emission and the photoinduced demagnetization/remagnetization dynamics in the case of thick films, while THz emission from the inverse spin Hall effect also plays a role in the case of thin Co films.

Magnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology based on the magnetocaloric effect, which has greater energy efficiency than conventional refrigeration, and has attracted much attention for low and room temperature cooling applications. Here, we report magnetocaloric effects at cryogenic temperatures in nanostructured rare earth oxides prepared by rare earth nitride formation and successive oxidation that guarantees chemical stabilities and finer particle sizes of rare earth oxide nanoparticles. Tb₂O₃ and Dy₂O₃ rare earth oxides with a cubic structure were prepared that undergo a second-order magnetic transition at Néel temperatures of 8 K and 4 K, respectively. Magnetic entropy changes (−ΔS_M) were 6.6 and 18.2 J/kg K, respectively, at an applied magnetic field of 6 T.

Invar Fe–Ni alloy is a prominent Ni steel alloy with a low coefficient of thermal expansion around room temperature. We investigate the correlation between magnetic properties and thermal expansion in cold-drawn Fe–36Ni wires with different heat treatment conditions, where the annealing parameters with furnace cooling (cooling from the annealing temperature of 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, and 1000 °C) are used. The variation trend of magnetic properties is consistent with that of thermal expansion for all samples, where the maximum appears at 600 °C -treated sample and 400 °C shows the minimum. The domain size and the area of domain walls determine the total energy of the domain wall, and the total energy directly determines the size of magnetostriction, which is closely related to the coefficient of thermal expansion. Also, the differential thermal analysis (DTA) shows endothermic and exothermic reactions represent crystalline transitions, which could possibly cause the abrupt change of magnetic properties and thermal expansion coefficient of materials. The results indicate that there is a certain relation between thermal expansion and magnetic properties. Besides the fundamental significance, our work provides an Invar alloy with a low coefficient of thermal expansion for practical use.

Manipulation of Ag nanocrystals derived from up to 200 000 atoms was performed using the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. By varying the scanning conditions, it was possible to move them laterally on contamination-free Si(111)-7×7 surfaces or to remove them. In both cases, thin Ag tracks were left behind. This demonstrates the concepts of nano patterning and nano painting with metals on clean semiconductor surfaces.

Since antiferromagnets (AFMs) have the potential to drive spintronic devices to higher speed and stability, generation, and transportation of terahertz (THz) spin currents in AFM/heavy metal (HM) structures have been extensively studied. However, effective methods to optimize the efficiency of THz spin current transmission at the interface are still lacking. Here, we demonstrated a significant enhancement of THz spin current in NiO/Pt structures by using THz emission spectroscopy. The spin transmittance is increased by up to a factor of 3.7 after heating the samples at a temperature of 350 °C for 0.5 h. This enhancement can be attributed to the optimization of the NiO/Pt interface resulting from the heating process. In contrast, the control samples NiO/Cu/Pt and NiO did not exhibit a similar enhancement, indicating that the improvement in spin current transmission is specific to the NiO/Pt interface. The scanning transmission electron microscopy is used to observe the optimized interface and confirmed the reason for THz signal enhancement. Our work paves a way for the modulation of AFM/HM interfaces and the optimization of ultrafast spintronic devices based on AFMs.