Photo-induced high-temperature ferromagnetism in YTiO(3)

In quantum materials, degeneracies and frustrated interactions can have a profound impact on the emergence of long-range order, often driving strong fluctuations that suppress functionally relevant electronic or magnetic phases(1–7). Engineering the atomic structure in the bulk or at heterointerfaces has been an important research strategy to lift these degeneracies, but these equilibrium methods are limited by thermodynamic, elastic and chemical constraints(8). Here we show that all-optical, mode-selective manipulation of the crystal lattice can be used to enhance and stabilize high-temperature ferromagnetism in YTiO(3), a material that shows only partial orbital polarization, an unsaturated low-temperature magnetic moment and a suppressed Curie temperature, T(c) = 27 K (refs. (9–13)). The enhancement is largest when exciting a 9 THz oxygen rotation mode, for which complete magnetic saturation is achieved at low temperatures and transient ferromagnetism is realized up to T(neq) > 80 K, nearly three times the thermodynamic transition temperature. We interpret these effects as a consequence of the light-induced dynamical changes to the quasi-degenerate Ti t(2g) orbitals, which affect the magnetic phase competition and fluctuations found in the equilibrium state(14–20). Notably, the light-induced high-temperature ferromagnetism discovered in our work is metastable over many nanoseconds, underscoring the ability to dynamically engineer practically useful non-equilibrium functionalities.