Surface plasmon resonance enhancement of the magneto-optical Kerr effect in Cu/Co/Ag/SnO2 structure

In this paper, an Ag ultra thin layer was deposited on the Cu/Co film by thermal evaporation technique in the vacuum. The atomic force microscopy confirms that nanoparticles of Ag were formed on the Co magnetic layer, and subsequently, the longitudinal Kerr signal of Cu/Co/Ag was amplified more than 2 times. This enhancement is resulting from the overlap of the surface plasmon resonance in the silver with the electronic transition in the Co layer. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of transparent semiconductor SnO2 as a cap layer on the magnitude of longitudinal Kerr signal. To obtain the optimal thickness of cap layer, a numerical analysis was carried out using a 4 x 4 characteristic matrix, which takes into account multiple reflections from interfaces within the medium and light transmission through the layers.