Current optical techniques achieve a remarkable precision in generating and shaping light pulses in a wide frequency and intensity range. Equally impressive advance is made in the fabrication and manipulation of nano-size materials. This talk provides an overview on how state-of-the-art light sources can be utilized to steer the charge and spin dynamics in ring-shaped molecular and semiconductor heterostructures. The photo-induced  polarization can be utilized for terahertz emission whereas the generated current can be employed as a local magnetic field for the study of the ultrafast dynamics of nanomagnets.