Ultrafast movies of the photoinduced phonon and magnon propagation using dual frequency-comb technology.

Abstract

The interaction between surface acoustic waves (SAWs) and magnons is an interesting phenomenon that can be used to control spins in spintronic devices, and thus the visualization of the related spatiotemporal dynamics can be useful. In this study, we used dual-frequency-comb-based asynchronous optical sampling to record the spatiotemporal evolution of the surface vibration associated with an optically excited SAW and that of the spin precession associated with the magnon under the same excitation condition at effectively 160 frames/ns. Isotropic and anisotropic propagation were observed for phonons and magnons, respectively, demonstrating the capability of measuring such dynamics with high resolution.