The ever increasing demands for faster data processing have been continuously fuelling efforts to search for ever faster ways to control magnetism and/or ferroelectricity in condensed matter. The idea to change properties of media with the help of light has long intrigued people in physics and chemistry. This research direction became especially appealing after development of femtosecond laser sources which are able to generate sub-100 fs laser pulses. These pulses are among the shortest stimuli in contemporary experimental physics and such a development has naturally raised fundamentally intriguing questions:
Can light effectively control the order parameter in condensed matter?
Are there any fundamental limitations on the speed of such a control?
In my talk I will discuss the mechanisms and time-scales of ultrafast switching of the order parameter in magnetic and ferroelectric media. Novel scenario of the switching will be suggested. Finally, it will be shown that employing plasmonicnano-antennas it should be possible to confine optical excitation in a spot well below diffraction limit, making ultrafast all-optical magnetic and ferroelectric data recording achievable.