Abstract-Large-Amplitude Spin Dynamics Driven by a THz Pulse in Resonance with an Electromagnon

1. T. Kubacka1,*, 
2. J. A. Johnson2, 
3. M. C. Hoffmann3, 
4. C. Vicario4, 
5. S. de Jong3, 
6. P. Beaud2, 
7. S. Grübel2, 
8. S.-W. Huang2,
9. L. Huber1, 
10. L. Patthey4, 
11. Y.-D. Chuang5, 
12. J. J. Turner3, 
13. G. L. Dakovski3, 
14. W.-S. Lee3, 
15. M. P. Minitti3, 
16. W. Schlotter3,
17. R. G. Moore6, 
18. C. P. Hauri4,7, 
19. S. M. Koohpayeh8, 
20. V. Scagnoli2, 
21. G. Ingold2, 
22. S. L. Johnson1, 
23. U. Staub2

-Author Affiliations

1. ¹ETH Zurich, Institute for Quantum Electronics, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 16, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
2. ²Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
3. ³Linac Coherent Light Source, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA94025, USA.
4. ⁴SwissFEL, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
5. ⁵Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
6. ⁶Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
7. ⁷Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
8. ⁸Institute for Quantum Matter, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

1. ↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: tkubacka@phys.ethz.ch
2. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/03/05/science.1242862

Multiferroics have attracted strong interest for potential applications where electric fields control magnetic order. The ultimate speed of control via magnetoelectric coupling, however, remains largely unexplored. Here, we report on an experiment in which we drive spin dynamics in multiferroic TbMnO₃ with an intense few-cycle terahertz (THz) light pulse tuned to resonance with an electromagnon, an electric-dipole active spin excitation_.We observe the resulting spin motion using time-resolved resonant soft x-ray diffraction. Our results show that it is possible to directly manipulate atomic-scale magnetic structures using the electric field of light on a sub-picosecond timescale.