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We present an optically induced remanent photostriction in BiFeO3, resulting from the photovoltaic effect, which is used to modify the ferromagnetism of Ni film in a hybrid BiFeO3/Ni structure. The 75% change in coercivity in the Ni film is achieved via optical and nonvolatile control. This photoferromagnetic effect can be reversed by static or ac electric depolarization of BiFeO3. Hence, the strain dependent changes in magnetic properties are written optically, and erased electrically. Light-mediated straintronics is therefore a possible approach for low-power multistate control of magnetic elements relevant for memory and spintronic applications.
We employ the ultrafast response of a 15.4 nm thin SrRuO3 layer grown epitaxially on a SrTiO3 substrate to perform time-domain sampling of an x-ray pulse emitted from a synchrotron storage ring. Excitation of the sample with an ultrashort laser pulse triggers coherent expansion and compression waves in the thin layer, which turn the diffraction efficiency on and off at a fixed Bragg angle during 5 ps. This is significantly shorter than the duration of the synchrotron x-ray pulse of 100 ps. Cross-correlation measurements of the ultrafast sample response and the synchrotron x-ray pulse allow to reconstruct the x-ray pulse shape.
We measure the transient strain profile in a nanoscale multilayer system composed of yttrium, holmium, and niobium after laser excitation using ultrafast x-ray diffraction. The strain propagation through each layer is determined by transient changes in the material-specific Bragg angles. We experimentally derive the exponentially decreasing stress profile driving the strain wave and show that it closely matches the optical penetration depth. Below the Neel temperature of Ho, the optical excitation triggers negative thermal expansion, which is induced by a quasi-instantaneous contractive stress and a second contractive stress contribution increasing on a 12-ps timescale. These two timescales were recently measured for the spin disordering in Ho [Rettig et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 257202 (2016)]. As a consequence, we observe an unconventional bipolar strain pulse with an inverted sign traveling through the heterostructure.