Jon Gorchon
Since the birth of spintronics, the efficient writing of a magnetic memory has been one of the driving goals of the field. In the past 20 years, electrical writing has been explored down to the sub-nanosecond scale in different types of structures and via various types of mechanisms such as spin-transfer-torque and spin-orbit torques. The most common materials in these studies, and in current technology, have been generally simple ferromagnets, which are easy to manipulate and to detect. In parallel, it has been shown that optical and THz radiation can be used to manipulate more complex systems at ultrafast timescales, including the well-known GdFeCo ferrimagnet. In this talk I will discuss recent results in our group, in which we demonstrate fast switching of fully ferromagnetic systems, via optical and THz means. Particularly, these results will be compared to more conventional ns-range switching to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of short pulses and potential routes for even faster manipulation of ferromagnets.