Ultraintense Femtosecond Magnetic Nanoprobes Driven by Azimuthally Polarized Laser Beams

The development of new techniques that allow to accurately control the properties of materials, both spatially and temporally, is one of the most exciting challenges in current nanotechnology. The current ultrafast laser sources provide unique tools in the form of femtosecond and even attosecond light pulses that can be focused down to the nanometer scale. On one hand, ultrafast laser sources have already shown great potential for applications in ultrafast magnetism. Since the pioneering work on ultrafast laser induced demagnetization [1], femtosecond laser pulses have been widely used in theoretical and experimental studies of femtomagnetism. On the other hand, recent technological advances have made possible to harness the polarization of these ultrashort laser beams. In particular, ultrashort vector laser beams, exhibiting radial or azimuthal polarization can be nowadays generated [2], with enormous potential to control magnetic properties at the nanometer scale [3].