CITIUS Highlights

Optical vortices are currently one of the most intensively studied topics in optics. These light beams, which carry orbital angular momentum (OAM), have been successfully utilized in the visible and infrared in a wide variety of applications. Moving to shorter wavelengths may open up completely new research directions in the areas of optical physics and material characterization. Here, we report on the generation of extreme-ultraviolet optical vortices with femtosecond duration carrying a controllable amount of OAM.
From a basic physics viewpoint, our results help to resolve key questions such as the conservation of angular momentum in highly nonlinear light–matter interactions, and the disentanglement and independent control of the intrinsic and extrinsic components of the photon’s angular momentum at short-wavelengths. The methods developed here will allow testing some of the recently proposed concepts such as OAM-induced dichroism, magnetic switching in organic molecules and violation of dipolar selection rules in atoms.

 

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Tunable orbital angular momentum in high-harmonic generation, D. Gauthier et al., dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14971

We use element-resolved IR-pump/extreme ultraviolet-probe experiments to disentangle the ultrafast interplay of the magnetic sublattices of an ordered crystalline magnetic alloy. As a paradigmatic example, we investigate the case of the FeRh alloy, which shows a delayed response for the different components.

 

Furthermore, a detailed time-resolved magneto-optic study shows that the data can be analyzed by only assuming Elliot-Yafet-like scattering, as the underlying mechanism for ultrafast demagnetization, resulting in an unexpected nonmonotonic dependence of the spin-flip rate, as a function of quenching.

 

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Testing spin-flip scattering as a possible mechanism of ultrafast demagnetization in ordered magnetic alloys, S. Günther et al., doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.180407