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We investigate the details of the precessional motion of the magnetic moment in canted antiferromagnetic YFeO3, which is excited by a linearly polarized terahertz (THz) pulse at room temperature. By tuning the spectral component of the input THz pulse around the quasi-ferromagnetic mode located near 0.3 THz, we have experimentally clarified the resonance effect in the THz control of the spin state. We were able to confirm this result from the simulation based on the Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation with the two sub-lattice model for the canted antiferromagnet. Finally, we discuss a crossover from a linear to a nonlinear magnetic response to the input THz pulse during the THz-induced precessional switching of the magnetization.

We investigate the surface states of topological insulator (TI) Bi2Se3 thin films grown on Si nanocrystals and Al2O3 substrates by using terahertz (THz) emission spectroscopy. Compared to bulk crystalline Bi2Te2Se, film TIs exhibit distinct behaviors in the phase and amplitude of emitted THz radiation. In particular, Bi2Se3 grown on Al2O3 shows an anisotropic response with a strong modulation of the THz signal in its phase. From x-ray diffraction, we find that the crystal plane of the Bi2Se3 films is inclined with respect to the plane of the Al2O3 substrate by about 0.27°. This structural anisotropy affects the dynamics of photocarriers and hence leads to the observed anisotropic response in the THz emission. Such relevance demonstrates that THz emission spectroscopy can be a sensitive tool to investigate the fine details of the surface crystallography and electrostatics of thin film TIs.

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We investigate the ferroelectric state of a tetragonal BiFeO3 thin film grown on a LaAlO3 (001) substrate using an optical second harmonic generation (SHG) microscope. Whereas the ferroelectric state of this material hosts nanometer-sized domains which again form micrometer-sized domains of four different configurations, we could figure out the characteristic features of each domain from the SHG mapping with various sizes of the probe beam, i.e., from 0.7 to 3.9 μm in its diameter. In particular, we demonstrate that a single micrometer-sized domain contributes to the SHG as a coherent summation of the constituent nanometer-sized domains, and multi-micrometer-sized domains contribute to the SHG as an incoherent summation of each micro-domain.