Giant mid-infrared Kerr enhancement from films on SiC

ORAL

Abstract

We report an enhancement of over an order of magnitude in the complex Kerr angle at photon energies near 121 meV in a variety of films on SiC substrates. The change in the reflected polarization in the presence of an out-of-plane magnetic field (polar magneto-optical Kerr effect, PMOKE) is measured in films ranging from graphene on SiC, aluminum doped SiC and iron oxide deposition on SiC. We model the PMOKE signal using multilayer analysis and find that the main contributor to this enhancement is the index of SiC becoming unity near 121 meV, at the edge of the Reststrahlen band of SiC. This result not only increases our sensitivity to PMOKE in a wide range of materials but also suggests that choice of substrate plays an important role in enhancing Kerr signal. This work is supported by NSF-DMR1006078.

*This work is supported by NSF-DMR1006078.

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Authors

  • Alok Mukherjee

    • State Univ of NY - Buffalo

  • M. Murat Arik

    • State Univ of NY - Buffalo

  • Chase T. Ellis

    • Electronics Science \& Technology Division Code 6800, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA,

  • Payam Taheri

    • State Univ of NY - Buffalo

  • Andreas V. Stier

    • State Univ of NY - Buffalo

  • Myoung Hwan Kim

    • State Univ of NY - Buffalo

  • Hao Zeng

    • State Univ of NY - Buffalo

  • John Cerne

    • State Univ of NY - Buffalo

  • Joseph G. Tischler

    • Electronics Science \& Technology Division Code 6800, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA,

  • Evan R. Glaser

    • Electronics Science \& Technology Division Code 6800, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA,

  • Rachel L. Myers Ward

    • Electronics Science \& Technology Division Code 6800, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA,

  • Joseph L. Tedsco

    • Electronics Science \& Technology Division Code 6800, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA,

  • Charles R. Eddy Jr

    • Electronics Science \& Technology Division Code 6800, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA,

  • D. Kurt Gaskill

    • Electronics Science \& Technology Division Code 6800, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA,

  • Yu Liu

    • Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

  • Shunchong Wang

    • Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

  • Gang Wang

    • Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China