  We have proposed the use of surface plasmon resonances at the interface of
hybrid magneto-photonic heterostructures [Opt. Mat. Exp., 7, 4316 (2017)] for
all-optical control of the macroscopic spin orientation in nanostructures in fs
time scales. This requires strong spin-photon coupling for the resonant
enhancement of opto-magnetic fields, generated through the inverse Faraday
effect, in magnetic nanostructures with perpendicular anisotropy. Here we
report on the development of nm thick interlayers to control the growth
orientation of hcp-Co alloys grown on refractory plasmonic materials to align
the magnetic axis out-of-plane, thereby meeting key requirements for the
realization of ultrafast magneto-photonic devices.
