Deterministic optical control of room temperature multiferroicity in BiFeO thin films.

Controlling ferroic orders (ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism and ferroelasticity) by optical methods is a significant challenge due to the large mismatch in energy scales between the order parameter coupling strengths and the incident photons. Here, we demonstrate an approach to manipulate multiple ferroic orders in an epitaxial mixed-phase BiFeO thin film at ambient temperature via laser illumination. Phase-field simulations indicate that a light-driven flexoelectric effect allows the targeted formation of ordered domains.