Ultrafast Phenomena in Hybrid Magnetic Nanostructures

Investigations of elementary excitations in hybrid magnetic nanostructures attract increasing scientific and technological interest because of their potential applications in ultrafast nanophotonics, high speed telecommunication and data recording technologies as well as in bio-photonics. Here we propose to work on a variety of theoretical and experimental aspects of two emerging research directions. The first one aims to tackle a challenging problem of acoustic magnetization switching in nanomagnets. Working in a stimulating research environment composed by experimentalists and theoreticians, the candidate will be asked to design smart nanostructures combining single nanomagnets and acoustic generators in a single structure. Femtosecond time-resolved magneto-optical experiments will be used to test the performance of these structures (fabricated by our collaboration partners in Germany) in term of magnetization switching. The second related task will be related to a novel research line in the nonlinear magneto-photonics, where the magneto-optical second-harmonic generation will be used to monitor ultrafast magnetization dynamics in nanostructures excited by femtosecond optical pulses.