Steering light with magnetic textures

We study the steering of visible light using a combination of magneto-optical effects and the reconfigurability of magnetic domains in yttrium-iron garnet films. The spontaneously formed stripe domains are used as a field-controlled optical grating, allowing for active spatiotemporal control of light. We discuss the basic ideas behind the approach and provide a quantitative description of the field dependence of the obtained light patterns. Finally, we calculate and experimentally verify the efficiency of our magneto-optical grating. (C) 2022 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).