Magnetic recording with light and no heat on garnet

A strong, short light pulse can record data on a magnetic layer of yttrium iron garnet doped with Co-ions. This was discovered by researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands and Bialystok University in Poland. The novel mechanism outperforms existing alternatives, allowing the fastest read-write magnetic recording accompanied by unprecedentedly low heat load. The research was reported in Nature on January 18 2017.