Ultrafast optical modulation of exchange coupling in FePtCoFe composite structure

Photoinduced magnetization dynamics in FePtCoFe bilayer is investigated by optical pump-probe measurements. The transient Kerr loops exhibit an instantaneous separated switching behavior due to exchange decoupling between FePt and CoFe layers induced by photoexcitation, which subsequently recover to the original uniform switching at a certain delay time of 10-20 ps. By analyzing the temporal dependence of magnetization ratio of FePt to CoFe and coercivity of FePt phase, we infer that the decoupling and slow magnetization recovery phenomena are ascribed to the laser-created spin disordering mainly in FePt layer, while the following onset of interfacial coupling results from spin/lattice cooling process.