Characterization of magnetization-induced second harmonic generation in iron oxide polymer nanocomposites

We have measured the magnetization-induced second harmonic generation (MSHG) of a nanocomposite consisting of iron oxide nanoparticles in a polymer film. The existing theoretical framework is extended to include DC magnetic fields in order to characterize the MSHG signal and analyze the measurements. Additionally, magnetic hysteresis loops are measured for four principal polarizer-analyzer configurations, revealing the P-IN-P-OUT and S-IN-P-OUT polarizer-analyzer configurations to be sensitive to the transverse magnetic field. These results demonstrate the use of MSHG and the applied formalism as a tool to study magnetic nanoparticles and their magnetic properties. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America