TY - JOUR AU - Freimuth, Frank AU - Blügel, Stefan AU - Mokrousov, Yuriy TI - Laser-induced torques in metallic ferromagnets JO - Physical review / B VL - 94 IS - 14 SN - 2469-9950 CY - Woodbury, NY PB - Inst. M1 - FZJ-2016-05608 SP - 144432 PY - 2016 AB - We study laser-induced torques in bcc Fe, hcp Co, and L10 FePt based on first-principles electronic structure calculations and the Keldysh nonequilibrium formalism. We find that the torques have two contributions, one from the inverse Faraday effect (IFE) and one from the optical spin-transfer torque (OSTT). Depending on the ferromagnet at hand and on the quasiparticle broadening the two contributions may be of similar magnitude, or one contribution may dominate over the other. Additionally, we determine the nonequilibrium spin polarization in order to investigate its relation to the torque. We find the torques and the perpendicular component of the nonequilibrium spin polarization to be odd in the helicity of the laser light, while the spin polarization that is induced parallel to the magnetization is helicity independent. The parallel component of the nonequilibrium spin polarization is orders of magnitude larger than the perpendicular component. In the case of hcp Co we find good agreement between the calculated laser-induced torque and a recent experiment. LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000390348300010 DO - DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.94.144432 UR - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/820051 ER -