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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Atom-specific magnon-driven ultrafast spin dynamics in Fe1−xNix alloys

Somnath Jana1,*, Ronny Knut1,†, Erna K. Delczeg-Czirjak1, Rameez S. Malik1, Robert Stefanuik1, Joachim A. Terschlüsen1, Raghuveer Chimata1, Dibya Phuyal1, M. Venkata Kamalakar1 et al.

Serkan Akansel2, Daniel Primetzhofer1, Martina Ahlberg3, Johan Söderström1, Johan Åkerman3,4, Peter Svedlindh2, Olle Eriksson1, and Olof Karis1

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, 75120 Uppsala, Sweden
  • 2Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, Box 534, 75121 Uppsala, Sweden
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden
  • 4Department of Applied Physics, School of Engineering Sciences, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 164 40 Kista, Sweden

  • *Present address: Max-Born-Institut für Nichtlineare Optik und Kurzzeitspektroskopie, Max-Born-Straße 2A, 12489 Berlin, Germany; sj.phys@gmail.com
  • †Corresponding author: ronny.knut@physics.uu.se

Phys. Rev. B 107, L180301 – Published 2 May, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.L180301

Abstract

By employing element-specific spectroscopy in the ultrafast time scale in Fe1−xNix alloys, we find a composition-dependent effect in the demagnetization that we relate to electron-magnon scattering and changes in the spin-wave stiffness. In all six measured alloys of different composition, the demagnetization of Ni compared to Fe exhibits a delay, an effect which we find is inherent in alloys but not in elemental Fe and Ni. Using a model based on electron-magnon scattering, we extract a spin-wave stiffness from all alloys that show excellent agreement with values obtained from other techniques.

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