Spinoptical nanoantenna-assisted magnetic storage at few nanometers on femtosecond timescale

2026-07-22

We will develop the conceptually new paradigm for ultra-dense and ultrafast magnetic storage that will exceed the current technology by two orders of magnitude in storage density (going from terabit/inch2 to tens of terabytes/inch2) and by about four orders of magnitude in operation speed (going from low GHz to THz for read/write). This will be achieved in an all-optical platform that allows deterministic, non-thermal, low-energy, ultrafast magnetization switching at few nanometers and potentially down to a molecular length-scale. The main building block of the envisioned memory unit in this new paradigm is the spinoptical nanoplasmonic antenna that concentrates pulsed polarized light at the nanometer length-scale and enables non-thermal spin-orbit mediated transfer of the light’s angular momentum (orbital and/or spin) to the nanoscale magnetic architectures. In this way fs-pulsed light, assisted by the plasmonic optical spin-selective antenna and the local electromagnetic field enhancement, allows for the precise control of the magnetic state of nanometer sized / molecular magnetic structures. The project aims to elucidate the fundamentals of the emergence and manipulation of light’s orbital and spin angular momenta to achieve non-thermal momentum-transfer-driven ultrafast switching process, to demonstrate its practical realization, and will map its suitability for future upscaling towards industrial implementation in devices.

Sweden, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland, France

2026-01-15