The question of how, and how fast, magnetization can be reversed is a topic of great practicalinterest for the manipulation and storage of magnetic information. It is generally acceptedthat magnetization reversal should be driven by a stimulus represented by time-non-invariantvectors such as a magnetic field, spin-polarized electric current, or cross-product of twooscillating electric fields. However, until now it has been generally assumed that heating alone,not represented as a vector at all, cannot result in a deterministic reversal of magnetization,although it may assist this process. Here we show numerically and demonstrate experimentallya novel mechanism of deterministic magnetization reversal in a ferrimagnet driven by anultrafast heating of the medium resulting from the absorption of a sub-picosecond laser pulsewithout the presence of a magnetic field.
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