Magnetic properties of layered nanostructures studied by means of Brillouin light scattering and the surface magneto-optical Kerr effect

Brillouin light scattering (BLS) and the surface magneto-optical Kerr effect (SMOKE) provide two well established, non-destructive, optical techniques whose combined use can yield a great deal of information about magnetism in low-dimensional systems, such as thin films, multilayers, and patterned structures. The former technique gives information on the high-frequency dynamical properties of a spin system, through detection of long-wavelength spin waves, while the latter permits easy and direct access to the orientation of the magnetization and to its evolution with the applied magnetic field. Both techniques can be implemented in situ, to study thin magnetic films and nanostructures in ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. In this article the main characteristics of both BLS and the SMOKE are discussed and a few experiments carried out at GHOST laboratory, Perugia University, are presented, with emphasis given to the complementarity of the two techniques.