Month: June 2016

17.06.2016 – SPICE Young Research Leaders Group Workshop: New Paradigms in Dirac-Weyl Nanoelectronics

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With the impending end of traditional Si based electronics due to Moore's law limitations, the need for novel approaches to next generation device design is not only apparent, but has become a popular interdisciplinary research topic. From research in fabrication engineering and device architectural design to devices based on intrinsically different physics, there is ample room for research from physics, chemistry, and engineering perspectives. From June 13th to 17th, the SPICE Young Research Leaders Workshop was held to approach the problem from a primarily materials perspective aiming to use external stimuli such as classical gating, ionic liquid gating, optical excitation, magnetic field control, strain, etc. to cause large physical property changes in Dirac and Weyl materials due to their unique, sensitive and modifyable Fermi surfaces. Together with co-organizer Jairo Sinova, the organizers Mazhar Ali and Binghai Yan brought together 22 young experts in theoretical and experimental physics, solid state chemistry, and electrical engineering in a multi-disciplinary collaborative effort to quickly bring the exciting new physics of Dirac and Weyl materials to practical application. Through the foundations laid in this workshop, we hope to spark a new field of electronics, discover new materials, new properties, new physics, and possibly create devices based on changing between fundamental states of matter.

For videos of the talks and further information, visit the workshop home page.

 

09.06.2016 – High-profile Spin+X publication: Room-temperature spin-orbit torque in NiMnSb

Making magnets flip like cats at room temperature

In today’s world of ever-increasing digital information storage anpost picd computation, the next information storage revolution seeks to exploit a novel effect arising from the relativistic physics of Einstein, which allows to effectively convert a new type of magnet into cats. Through this effect, these magnets can flip themselves through the internal motion of their own electrons. One can almost describe these new types of magnets as relativistic magnetic cats.

In these new magnetic materials, a current running through the magnet can flip the direction of the magnetization depending on the direction of the current. This novel phenomenon in physics, dubbed spin-orbit torques, links the spin-degree of freedom of magnets that gives rise to the magnetization, to the charge degree of freedom that allows for current-charge motion inside the material. Continue reading "09.06.2016 – High-profile Spin+X publication: Room-temperature spin-orbit torque in NiMnSb"