Dependence of all-optical magnetic switching on the sublattice magnetization orientation in Tb-Fe thin films

We demonstrate that the direction of all-optical switching (AOS) in rare-earth transition-metal (RE-TM) alloy Tb-Fe thin films depends on the orientation of the sublattice magnetization and not on the direction of the resulting net magnetization. For this purpose, we investigated the AOS ability for a sample dominated by the Fe sublattice magnetization (Tb₂₄Fe₇₆) and another dominated by the Tb sublattice (Tb₃₀Fe₇₀). This finding of the sublattice dependence of AOS contributes to the understanding of switching in RE-TM multilayered thin films and heterostructures.