Attosecond Lasers Induce Ultrafast Magnetization in Solids

Theoretical physicists at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) have discovered that intense laser light can create attosecond magnetism in solids with heavy atoms, offering new insights into magnetization and potentially enabling ultrafast memory devices. The team used advanced simulations to investigate the magnetization process in several 2D and 3D materials and found that, in structures with heavy atoms, the fast electron dynamics initiated by the laser pulses can be converted to attosecond magnetism. The magnetization evolves on extremely short timescales, less than 500 attoseconds, which is a prediction for the fastest magnetic response ever.