Magnetization-induced-second-harmonic generation from surfaces and interfaces

Magnetization-induced effects in the nonlinear optical response of magnetic media, such as magnetization-induced-second-harmonic generation (MSHG), led to very strong and novel nonlinear magneto-optical effects that appear to be very sensitive to magnetic interface properties. This surface-interface sensitivity of MSHG, in combination with the very large magneto-optical effects, has led to a fast development of this technique over the past decade. On the one hand, an extreme sensitivity of MSHG to the electronic and magnetic structure of clean surfaces has been successfully demonstrated. On the other hand, the penetration depth of light allows one to use this sensitivity to study buried interfaces in multilayer systems. Further experimental developments of the MSHG technique, such as space and time resolution as well as magnetization-sensitive-sum-frequency generation, appear to be promising as well.