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Texture-dependent all-optical switching in ferromagnetic films via stochastic nucleation of nanoscale domains

Nature Materials (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Controlling magnetic textures at ever smaller length scales and timescales is of fundamental and technological interest. External stimuli capable of acting at the nanoscale pose a challenge, motivating alternative approaches that exploit the intrinsic inhomogeneity of magnetic textures. Here we use a Pt/Co/Pt ferromagnetic thin film to investigate magnetization reversal with circularly polarized picosecond laser pulses. Magnetic force microscopy reveals stochastic nucleation of complex nanotextured domains from an initial monodomain state. Subsequent illumination of these domains with laser pulses induces deterministic and homogeneous magnetization switching. We find that the domain growth depends on the complexity of the texture, revealing a helicity- and texture-dependent mechanism that contrasts with temperature-gradient-driven domain expansion. We complement our observations with a stochastic model in which domain nucleation is governed by light helicity and the local magnetic environment. These results provide an insight into the mechanism of multipulse helicity-dependent all-optical switching.

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Fig. 1: Nanoscopy of the magnetic nanotextures in Pt/Co/Pt trilayers.
Fig. 2: Multipulse evolution of stochastic domain networks.
Fig. 3: Evolution of photoinduced submicrometre domains under the MCD-derived temperature gradient.
Fig. 4: Impact of texture and helicity of light on the switching probability.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this work are available at https://doi.org/10.34973/6j6t-pd76 (ref. 54). Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the findings of this paper are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Kiselev, D. Grundler, R. Medapalli and L. Körber for fruitful discussions and K. Saeedi and C. Berkhout for their technical support. Additionally, we would like to thank N. Khokhlov, V. Bilyk, L. Nowak and J. Hintermayr for their assistance with the building of the experimental setup. This work was funded by European Research Council (ERC) grant 101078206 ASTRAL, the European Union Horizon 2020 innovation programme under the ERC grant agreement number 856538 (3D-MAGiC), the European Union Horizon 2020 innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement number 861300 (COMRAD), and the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) under the research program ‘Materials for the Quantum Age’ (QuMat) registration number 024.005.006. F.K. and M.K. acknowledge funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) TRR 173/2 Spin+X no. 268565370 (Projects A01, A12 and B02). M.N. acknowledges support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) PDF fellowship. R.V.M. acknowledges support from the ERC grant agreement number 852050 (MAGSHAKE). J.H.M. acknowledges funding from the VIDI project number 223.157 (CHASEMAG). J.H.M. and M.K. acknowledge the Horizon Europe Framework Programme of the European Commission under project number 101070290 (NIMFEIA) and, with T.R., also the KIC project number 22016, which are partly financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Dinar Khusyainov, Rein Liefferink, MengXing Na, Dmytro Afanasiev, Alexey V. Kimel, Johan H. Mentink & Theo Rasing

  2. Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Fabian Kammerbauer, Robert Frömter & Mathias Kläui

  3. NT-MDT BV, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

    Dmitry Kozodaev

  4. Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Nikolay Vovk & Rostislav V. Mikhaylovskiy

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  1. Dinar Khusyainov
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Contributions

D.A., J.H.M., A.V.K. and T.R. conceived the project. D.A., J.H.M., A.V.K. and T.R. supervised the study. D. Khusyainov and D. Kozodaev designed and built the experimental setup. D. Khusyainov and N.V. performed the experiments. F.K., R.F. and M.K. fabricated the samples. D. Khusyainov analysed and interpreted the results of the MFM and magneto-optical experiments. D. Khusyainov and M.N. prepared the figures. R.L. and J.H.M. provided the theoretical model. R.L. carried out the simulations. D. Khusyainov, R.L., M.N., R.V.M., J.H.M., D.A., A.V.K. and T.R. wrote the original draft with feedback from all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Dinar Khusyainov.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Magnetic hysteresis loop for Pt(3 nm)/Co(0.6 nm)/Pt(3 nm).

The hysteresis loop is measured by observing the Faraday rotation in response to changes in an applied magnetic field.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Effect of the light helicity on the switching.

Magneto-optical image of two domains with M=1 and M=−1 after sweeping with a laser beam with σ−, σ+, and linearly polarized light (LP). Image shows that to switch magnetization from M=1 to M=−1 (M=−1 to M=1), σ− (σ+) pulses are necessary. The scale bar is 100 µm.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Comparison of magneto-optical Faraday and magnetic force microscopy for studying laser-induced magnetic nanotextures.

Top: In Faraday microscopy, linearly polarized light passes through a polarizer, the magnetic sample, a 10× objective, and an analyzer before being detected by a CCD camera. Circularly polarized laser pulses (σ) induce nanotextured magnetic domains in the sample. Laser-induced magnetic domains induce Faraday rotation of the light polarization, producing a magneto-optical image (right). Bottom: In MFM, a magnetized tip scans above the sample surface to detect magnetic stray fields coming from the nanotextured domains, yielding a high-resolution MFM image (right). Representative magneto-optical and MFM images illustrate the differences in spatial resolution between the two techniques. The scale bar is 5 µm.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Conditions for deterministic switching in Pt/Co/Pt.

(a) Magneto-optical images of the magnetization after illumination with σ laser pulses as a function of the number of pulses and fluence. Magneto-optical images were obtained using magneto-optical Faraday microscopy. Images were post-processed by removing the background. The images of the monodomain state, unaffected by laser pulses, are replaced by a uniform yellow background. The scale bar is 15 µm. (b) Diagram of the average magnetization after laser illumination inside the switched spot as a function of the number of pulses and fluence. Dots represent the MFM sampled images in deterministic (white) and mixed states (black) displayed in (c). The scale bars in (c) are 5 µm.

Extended Data Fig. 5 An example of the fractal dimension calculation using the Minkovski-Bouligand method.

(a) Binary MFM image of the sample after illumination with 4 pulses. (b) Graph of the logarithm of box size plotted against the logarithm of box number with a linear fit showing a value for D = 1.17±0.04.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Complete multi-pulse evolution of helicity-dependent switching up to 10 thousand pulses.

(a) MFM images of the laser-induced stochastic domain networks as a function of the number of pulses N at a fluence of F = 2.26 mJ/cm2. The white shadow indicates progress in the deterministic state formation. The lower panel shows the result of the simulations using a probabilistic energy barrier-based model, including and excluding heat accumulation. We see that heat accumulation doesn’t affect the formation of the homogeneously switched domain at a low number of pulses. Heat accumulation was implemented in the model as an exponential growth of the base temperature from \({T}_{0}\)= 0.2E0/kB to \({T}_{0}\)= 0.5E0/kB saturating at ~100 pulses. The scale bars are 5 µm. (b) The normalized switched area As/Ab (gray) and the fractal dimension D (red) as a function of the incident number of circularly polarized laser pulses N, calculated from the experiment and simulations, respectively. As/Ab and D in experiment (simulations) are presented as mean values ± s.d (s.e.m). The experiment has been repeated 3 times for the whole range of numbers of pulses. We ran the simulation 50 times from 0 to 10 pulses, 3 times in the range 100 to 1000 pulses, and 1 time for 10000 pulses. We use only the outer domain wall to estimate the fractal dimension of the deterministic part in the mixed state. The switched area increases linearly up to ten pulses and then saturates after 100 pulses, followed by a slow growth, as observed in the experiment and simulation. In D, we observe a rapid increase to D ~ 1.24 (1.17) from 0 to 6(7) pulses, followed by a plateau from 6(7) to 100(10), and a decrease to D ~ 1.15 (1.11) from 100(10) to 10K pulses for experiments (simulations).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 Single-pulse nucleation of the domain networks.

(a) MFM images of the single-pulse nucleated domains as a function of pulse fluence for left (σ−) and right (σ+) circularly polarized laser pulses. We observe that the threshold for small domains is Fσ− =2.57 mJ/cm2 for σ− pulses, while for σ+ pulses, the critical threshold fluence is Fσ+ =2.7 mJ/cm2. The difference between Fσ+ and Fσ− confirms that the absorption of σ+ and σ− pulses is inequivalent, which can be attributed to the MCD effect. The scale bar is 5 µm. (b-c) Switched area (b) and fractal dimension (c) as a function of fluence for the domain networks. Extracted an MCD-induced shift in As/Ab as the function of fluence is approximately 3%. Fractal dimension D also exhibits an MCD effect but with a slightly smaller induced shift of approximately 1.5%. Solid lines in (b,c) serve as a guide for the eye.

Extended Data Fig. 8 Smallest laser-induced magnetic domain.

An MFM image of the laser-induced stochastic domain network was obtained after illumination with six pulses. The zoom-in panel shows the smallest magnetic domain. The line profile was fitted with a Gaussian distribution. The domain size is about 235 nm (Full width at half-maximum). The scale bar is 5 µm.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Effect of MCD on laser-induced evolution of stochastic domain networks.

(a) MFM images of the laser-induced nanosized domain networks as a function of the number of σ− and LP pulses. Fluence was fixed at a value of about 2.5 mJ/cm2. (b) Simulated images of the laser-induced domains with and without the contribution of the MCD effect. The scale bar is 5 µm.

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Khusyainov, D., Liefferink, R., Na, M. et al. Texture-dependent all-optical switching in ferromagnetic films via stochastic nucleation of nanoscale domains. Nat. Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-026-02515-8

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