Optical switching of a moiré Chern ferromagnet.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41606315.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-10048-4.
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Abstract
Optical control offers a non-contact, high-precision and ultrafast route to manipulating quantum material properties<sup>1-5</sup>. Fractional Chern ferromagnetic states in moiré superlattices are a promising platform by which to pursue topological quantum computing<sup>6-10</sup>, but an effective optical control protocol has remained elusive. Here we demonstrate robust optical switching of integer and fractional Chern ferromagnets in twisted molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe<sub>2</sub>) bilayers using continuous-wave circularly polarized light. Highly efficient optical manipulation of spin orientations in the topological ferromagnet regime is realized at zero field using a pump light power as low as 28 nW µm<sup>-2</sup>. Using this optically induced transition, we also demonstrate magnetic bistate cycling and spatially resolved writing of ferromagnetic domain walls. This work establishes a reliable and efficient optical control scheme for moiré Chern ferromagnets, paving the way for dissipationless spintronics and quantized Chern junction devices.