Laser-induced topological spin switching at room temperature in the van der Waals ferromagnet Fe3GaTe2

npj Spintronics 2026 Open access

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Authors: C. W. F. Freeman, Woohyun Cho, Paul Steven Keatley, PeiYu Cai, Zekun Xue, Chenghao Yang, Harry Youel, Elton J. G. Santos, R. J. Hicken, Heejun Yang, H. Kurebayashi, Murat Cubukcu
+1 more Maciej Dąbrowski
DOI: 10.1038/s44306-026-00139-x
Cited by: 1
References: 46

Abstract

using laser-pulse excitation. Rapid laser-induced heating followed by cooling enables access to the skyrmion bubble state at low fields and drives reversible switching between this state and labyrinth domains. The switching requires a minimum of about 20 pulses, and further reduction of the pulse number is limited by sample degradation at higher fluence. The nucleation occurs at magnetic induction fields as low as 5 mT, which substantially lowers the field requirement compared to slow field-cooling approaches. Micromagnetic simulations attribute this switching to the thermal cycle induced by the laser. Our findings establish vdW ferromagnets as promising candidates for room-temperature, laser-controlled, non-volatile memory storage applications.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Magnetic properties of thin films Topological Materials and Phenomena 2D Materials and Applications

Publication details

Journal / source
npj Spintronics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
4
Issue
1
Pages
24–24
Publication date
1 June 2026
Language
EN