Ultrafast magnetic vortex core switching driven by topological inverse Faraday effect

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel topological inverse Faraday effect (TIFE) that enables ultrafast magnetic vortex core switching driven by circularly polarized light, relying on spin Berry's phase rather than spin-orbit interaction.

Contribution

It presents the theoretical discovery of TIFE, a new mechanism for magnetic control that is selective to topological structures and does not require spin-orbit coupling.

Findings

TIFE can switch magnetic vortex cores within 150 ps.

The mechanism relies on spin Berry's phase, not spin-orbit interaction.

Numerical simulations confirm ultrafast switching without magnetic fields.

Abstract

We present a theoretical discovery of an unconventional mechanism of inverse Faraday effect (IFE) which acts selectively on topological magnetic structures. The effect, topological inverse Faraday effect (TIFE), is induced by spin Berry's phase of the magnetic structure when a circularly polarized light is applied. Thus a spin-orbit interaction is not necessary unlike in the conventional IFE. We demonstrate by numerical simulation that TIFE realizes ultrafast switching of a magnetic vortex within a switching time of 150 ps without magnetic field.