Publication date: 15th December 2025
Spintronic and magnetoelectric systems continue to face intrinsic trade-offs among switching speed, energy consumption, and reliability. Recently, optical excitations of antiferromagnetic (AFM)/ferromagnetic (FM) bilayers have been used to modulate the interfacial interaction between the two layers, commonly known as “exchange bias”. While interesting fast magnetization dynamics have already been observed [1], so far, in most cases laser illumination has triggered thermal effects, which is detrimental in terms of energy efficiency. Inducing strain-mediated changes in AFM/FM exchange interactions through the photovoltaic effect (using a low-power laser and a ferroelectric, FE, substrate) is appealing to reduce power consumption. Moreover, the optical control of ferroelectric states and its magnetoelectric coupling with multi-state functionality [3] has the potential to overcome current performance bottlenecks while enabling new device paradigms for neuromorphic computing, reconfigurable logic architectures, and ultra-low-power wireless data storage.
Here, we present the first demonstration of significant optical control of exchange bias at room temperature in a FE/FM/AFM heterostructure via visible-light-induced photostriction [2]. This effect arises from abnormal strain generated via the photostrictive response of the ferroelectric substrate, which induces compressive stress along both in-plane ferroelectric polarization directions. This strain is transferred to FM layer interfaced with AFM layer, leading to a modulation of magnetic anisotropy and interfacial exchange bias coupling. Unlike conventional electric-field-driven or strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling, this approach enables non-thermal, reversible, multilevel tuning of magnetic interactions, with programmable states achieved solely by adjusting light intensity as low as 0.1 W cm⁻². This light-controlled, multistate response provides a new degree of freedom for neuromorphic and opto-magnetic memory devices, offering energy-efficient, wireless, and multifunctional operation.
Financial support by the European Research Council (2021-ERC-Advanced ‘REMINDS’ Grant Nº 101054687 and 2024-ERC-Proof of Concept ‘SECURE-FLEXIMAG’ Grant no. 101204328), the Generalitat de Catalunya (2021-SGR-00651), and the Spanish State Research Agency (PID2020-116844RB-C21 and TED2021-130453B-C22) is acknowledged. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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