Optical control of 4f orbital state in rare earth metals

• DOI: 10.17169/refubium-43681
• Publication Date: 2024-04-19
• Authors: Nele Thielemann-Kühn; Tim Amrhein; Wibke Bronsch; Somnath Jana; Niko Pontius; Robin Y. Engel; Piter S. Miedema; Dominik Legut; Karel Carva; Unai Atxitia; Benjamin E. van K...; Martin Teichmann; Robert E. Carley; Laurent Mercadier; Alexander Yarosla...; Giuseppe Mercurio; Loïc Le Guyader; Naman Agarwal; Rafael Gort; Andres Scherz; Siarhei Dziarzhytski; Günter Brenner; Federico Pressacco; Ru-Pan Wang; Jan O. Schunck; Mangalika Sinha; Martin Beye; Gheorghe S. Chiuz...; Peter M. Oppeneer; Martin Weinelt; Christian Schüßle...
• Keywords: Condensed Matter - Materials Science; Materials Quantum Complex and Functional Materials; 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik::530 Physik::530 Physik; 500; Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); FOS: Physical sciences; Condensed Matter Physics; 530; 01 natural sciences; 4f orbital state; optical control; 0103 physical sciences; rare-earth metals; Physical and Materials Sciences; Den kondenserade materiens fysik; info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/500

A change of orbital state alters the coupling between ions and their surroundings drastically. Orbital excitations are hence key to understand and control interaction of ions. Rare-earth elements with strong magneto-crystalline anisotropy (MCA) are important ingredients for magnetic devices. Thus, control of their localized 4 f magnetic moments and anisotropy is one major challenge in ultrafast spin physics. With time-resolved x-ray absorption and resonant inelastic scattering experiments, we show for Tb metal that 4 f -electronic excitations out of the ground-state multiplet occur after optical pumping. These excitations are driven by inelastic 5 d -4 f -electron scattering, altering the 4 f -orbital state and consequently the MCA with important implications for magnetization dynamics in 4 f -metals and more general for the excitation of localized electronic states in correlated materials.