A promising approach in designing composite materials with unusual physicalbehavior combines solid nanostructures and orientationally ordered soft matterat the mesoscale. Such composites not only inherit properties of theirconstituents but also can exhibit emergent behavior, such as ferromagneticordering of colloidal metal nanoparticles forming mesoscopic magnetizationdomains when dispersed in a nematic liquid crystal. Here we demonstrate theoptical patterning of domain structures and topological defects in suchferromagnetic liquid crystal colloids, which allows for altering their responseto magnetic fields. Our findings reveal the nature of the defects in this softmatter system which is different as compared to non-polar nematics andferromagnets alike.
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