Rapid Thermal Prototyping with Cobolt Twist

Temperature isn’t just about heat, it’s a powerful tool that influences magnetism, optical properties, and electrical behavior. Scientists from the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau and at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics present an experimental optical setup
for creating tunable two-dimensional temperature patterns on a micrometer scale.

The study, published in Review of Scientific Instruments, details how this innovative setup was done: it employs Brillouin light scattering (BLS) spectroscopy to observe how temperature affects wave-like excitations in materials. In addition, the group use a spatial light modulator (SLM) and our Cobolt Twist 457 nm laser  to project customizable heat patterns with micrometer resolution.

As an example of its practical application, the group produced temperature-induced magnetization landscapes in ferrimagnetic yttrium iron garnet films. They demonstrate that due to the temperature dependence of the magnon spectrum, spatial temperature distributions can be visualized even for microscale thermal patterns.