Plasmon-assisted high reflectivity and strong magneto-optical Kerr effect in permalloy gratings

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally a strong plasmon-assisted enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect in permalloy gratings. The enhanced transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect is accompanied by an increased grating reflectivity with the maximum of enhancement being correlated with plasmonic Fano resonances. This correlation was confirmed by an intuitive Fano model and also through full-vectorial optical simulations. Simultaneously high reflectivity and transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect as well as narrowest ferromagnetic resonance linewidth and vanishing anisotropy make permalloy nanostructures attractive for applications in spintronics and nano-optics such as, for example, all-optical excitation of propagating spin waves and spectral tuning of optical nanoantennas. © 2013 American Institute of Physics.