Ultrafast Magnetism of a Ferrimagnet across the Spin-Flop Transition in High Magnetic Fields

We show that applying magnetic fields up to 30 T has a dramatic effect on the ultrafast spin dynamics in ferrimagnetic GdFeCo. Upon increasing the field beyond a critical value, the dynamics induced by a femtosecond laser excitation strongly increases in amplitude and slows down significantly. Such a change in spin response is explained by different dynamics of the Gd and FeCo magnetic sublattices following a spin-flop phase transition from a collinear to a noncollinear spin state.