First magneto-optical observation of an exchange-induced plasma edge splitting

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Abstract
The first magneto‐optical data for the metallic thulium monochalcogenides TmS and TmSe in the 0.55–5.5‐eV photon energy range is presented. The Kerr rotation and ellipticity spectra of both compounds display one pronounced structure with an ellipticity of up to 3.6 deg. It is demonstrated that the magneto‐optical effect is related to a splitting of the conduction electron plasma edge which at 2‐K and 4‐T amounts to 30 and 60 meV for TmS and TmSe, respectively. In a skew scattering model, this splitting is shown to be approximately equal to the product of the exchange‐induced conduction electron spin polarization with the spin‐orbit energy. The d‐spin polarization is estimated to be −20% and −40% at 2 K and 4 T for TmS and TmSe, respectively.