Events

Department of Magnetic Reseach Seminar

Ultrafast all-optical switching of magnetization in dielectrics

prof. Andrzej Stupakiewicz

Wydział Fizyki Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku

All-optical control of spins with ultrashort laser pulses is an intriguing and rapidly growing fundamental research area as well as an increasingly important issue in modern data storage technology. We demonstrate ultrafast and nonthermal photo-magnetic switching in ferrimagnetic dielectric iron garnet films using time-resolved magneto-optical imaging. In garnet a single linearly polarized 50 fs laser pulse promote switching of the magnetization at room temperature without external magnetic field. Changing the linear polarization of this laser pulse we deterministically steer the net magnetization, write ”0” and “1” magnetic bits at will. A novel mechanism of this switching allows ever fastest write-read magnetic recording accompanied by record low dissipation. We anticipate that the low-dissipative magnetization switching open up a plethora of opportunities for a novel design of cold photo-magnetic recording.