The probe of antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin dynamics in thin films has traditionally relied on the short x-ray pulses based on the magnetic dichroism or diffraction effect. Here, we demonstrate the direct optical probe of ultrafast laser-induced AFM spin dynamics of thin AFM CoO films using time-resolved magnetic linear dichroism effect in reflection geometry. The ultrafast laser excitation of the CoO film leads to the quench of AFM order, manifested as large polarization rotations of the reflected probe light. Far below the Néel temperature (TN), the quench of the AFM order occurs within 300 fs, which is faster than the lattice thermalization (∼1ps) via electron-lattice scattering. This AFM quench process, however, slows down near TN, where an additional slower quench process with the time constant longer than 20 ps is emergent. Such an AFM spin dynamics is dramatically different than the transient reflectivity dynamics which is nearly invariant in a wide temperature range across TN. We attribute the quench of AFM order in CoO to the charge-transfer excitation and thermal effect, but the latter mechanism only plays a significant role near TN.

Magnetization (M) precessions driven by ultrafast laser-induced nonthermal effects are observed in undoped yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films of (100) and (111) orientations using pump-probe time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect. The M precessions show a strong dependence on the polarization direction of linearly polarized pump pulses of 400 nm. In contrast, we can barely observe any M precession using circularly polarized pump pulses, which indicates that the inverse Faraday effect is negligible. For the case of linear pump polarization, a phenomenological model is introduced, based on the modulation of M via a modulation of fourth-rank susceptibility tensors by a laser pulse. This allows one to distinguish the contributions of the inverse Cotton-Mouton effect (ICME) from those of the photoinduced magnetic anisotropy (PMA). Using the formula derived from the phenomenological model, we perform the fitting of the polarization-direction-dependent precession phase and amplitude in (100)- and (111)-oriented YIG films. The fitting results reveal that the M-precession excitation originates from a combination effect of ICME and PMA, but the ICME plays the dominant role.

Improved charge generation via fast and effective hole transfer in all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs) with large highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy offset (ΔEH) is revealed utilizing ultrafast transient absorption (TA) spectroscopy. Blending the same nonfullerene acceptor poly{[N,N′‐bis(2‐octyldodecyl)‐naphthalene‐1,4,5,8‐bis(dicarboximide)‐2,6‐diyl]‐alt‐5,5′‐(2,2′‐bithiophene) (N2200) with three different donor polymers produces all‐polymer blends with different ΔEH. The selective excitation of N2200 component in blends enables to uncover the hole transfer process from hole polaron‐induced bleaching and absorption signals probed at different wavelength. As the ΔEH is enhanced from 0.14 to 0.37 eV, the hole transfer rate rises more than one order and the hole transfer efficiency increases from 12.9% to 86.8%, in agreement with the trend of internal quantum efficiency in the infrared region where only N2200 has absorption. Additionally, Grazing‐incidence wide‐angle X‐ray scattering measurements indicate that face‐on crystal orientation in both polymer donor and acceptor also plays an important role in facilitating the charge generation via hole transfer in all‐PSCs. Hence, large ΔEH and proper crystal orientation should be considered in material design for efficient hole transfer in N2200‐based heterostructures. These results can provide valuable guidance for fabrication of all‐PSCs to further improve power conversion efficiency.

Ultrafast laser induced magnetization reversal in L10 FePt films with high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy was investigated using single- and double-pulse excitations. Single-pulse excitation beyond 10 mJ cm−2 caused magnetization (M) reversal at the applied fields much smaller than the static coercivity of the films. For double-pulse excitation, both coercivity reduction and reversal percentage showed a rapid and large decrease with the increasing time interval (Δt) of the two pulses in the range of 0–2 ps. In this Δt range, the maximum demagnetization (ΔMp) was also strongly attenuated, whereas the integrated demagnetization signals over more than 10 ps, corresponding to the average lattice heat effect, showed little change. These results indicate that laser induced M reversal in FePt films critically relies on ΔMp. Because ΔMp is determined by spin temperature, which is higher than lattice temperature, utilizing an ultrafast laser instead of a continuous-wave laser in laser-assisted M reversal may reduce the overall deposited energy and increase the speed of recording. The effective control of M reversal by slightly tuning the time delay of two laser pulses may also be useful for ultrafast spin manipulation. The work at the Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0300703), the National Key Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2015CB921403), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11774064 and 51371052). The work at the Department of Physics, Fudan University, was supported by the National Key Basic Research Program (No. 2015CB921401) and the National Natural Science Foundation (Nos. 11434003 and 11474066) of China.

Controlling the wave fronts of surface waves (including surface-plamon polaritons and their equivalent counterparts) at will is highly important in photonics research, but the available mechanisms suffer from the issues of low efficiency, bulky size, and/or limited functionalities. Inspired by recent studies of metasurfaces that can freely control the wave fronts of propagating waves, we propose to use metawalls placed on a plasmonic surface to efficiently reshape the wave fronts of incident surface waves (SWs). Here, the metawall is constructed by specifically designed meta-atoms that can reflect SWs with desired phases and nearly unit amplitudes. As a proof of concept, we design and fabricate a metawall in the microwave regime (around 12 GHz) that can anomalously reflect the SWs following the generalized Snell’s law with high efficiency (approximately 70%). Our results, in excellent agreement with full-wave simulations, provide an alternative yet efficient way to control the wave fronts of SWs in different frequency domains. We finally employ full-wave simulations to demonstrate a surface-plasmon-polariton focusing effect at telecom wavelength based on our scheme.