Nele Thielemann-Kühn, Tim Amrhein, Wibke Bronsch, Somnath Jana, Niko Pontius, Robin Y Engel, Piter S Miedema, Dominik Legut, Karel Carva, Unai Atxitia, Benjamin E van Kuiken, Martin Teichmann, Robert E Carley, Laurent Mercadier, Alexander Yaroslavtsev, Giuseppe Mercurio, Loïc Le Guyader, Naman Agarwal, Rafael Gort, Andres Scherz, Siarhei Dziarzhytski, Günter Brenner, Federico Pressacco, Ru-Pan Wang, Jan O Schunck, Mangalika Sinha, Martin Beye, Gheorghe S Chiuzbăian, Peter M Oppeneer, Martin Weinelt, Christian Schüßler-Langeheine
A change of orbital state alters the coupling between ions and their surroundings drastically. Orbital excitations are hence key to understand and control interaction of ions. Rare-earth elements with strong magneto-crystalline anisotropy (MCA) are important ingredients for magnetic devices. Thus, control of their localized 4 f magnetic moments and anisotropy is one major challenge in ultrafast spin physics. With time-resolved x-ray absorption and resonant inelastic scattering experiments, we show for Tb metal that 4 f -electronic excitations out of the ground-state multiplet occur after optical pumping...
April 19, 2024: Science Advances