News

20.12.2016 – INSPIRE Group & Kläui Lab opened new Communication Zone

Yesterday, after three months of planning and construction, Jairo Sinova and Mathias Kläui opened the new Communication Zone. The shared communication space will be open for all members of the INSPIRE-Group, SPICE, the Kläui-Lab and their guests. The ComZone allows both groups to meet, discuss and work together on projects in a nice and modern working environment.

At the inauguration both group leaders were looking forward to even more interchange between the groups: "Whether you're just having a discussion over a cup of coffee, or a large scientific meeting, the new ComZone will be the perfect place for you. We like to thank the institute of physics for making this possible, as well as everybody who was involved in this project."

04.11.2016 – INSPIRE Group Welcomes New Team Members

We are very pleased to welcome Bertrand Dupé and Melanie Dupé, Kyoung-Whan Kim, Marie Böttcher and Uday Chopra to the INSPIRE group. Bertrand Dupé joined us as an interim professor and team leader. Melanie Dupé and Kyoung-Whan Kim, both postdoctoral researcher, add perfectly our team as well as Marie Böttcher and Uday Chopra, who joined us as PhD students.

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01.08.2016 – Ulrike Ritzmann joined the INSPIRE Group

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We are very pleased to welcome Ulrike Ritzmann to the INSPIRE group. Before Ulrike joined our group, she had a Postdoc position in Prof. Ulrich Nowak's group at the University of Konstanz. Her research interest lies in the field of spin caloritronics, that combines the interplay of heat, charge and spin. In magnetic materials, temperature gradients can excite spin currents mediated via the so-called magnons, which are the excitations of the magnetic system. By using atomistic spin model simulations, she studies the thermally driven magnon propagation and its characteristic length scale in different magnetic materials starting from ferromagnets to two-sublattice materials like antiferromagnets and ferrimagnets.

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14.07.2016 – Amaury Souza received the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation Research Fellowship

Amaury AvH Fellowship

Brilliant news for the INSPIRE group: We are very pleased to announce that Amaury Souza received the Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. As the group knows how to celebrate, we took the opportunity to celebrate his achievement with a traditional and popular dish from his home country Brazil: Pão de Queijo (Cheese Bread). We wish him all the best and much inspiration for his future research projects as a part of the INSPIRE group!

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04.07.2016 – INSPIRE Group Workshop in Sörgenloch

Sörgenloch

On July 4th and 5th the INSPIRE group had an internal group workshop in the picturesque village of Sörgenloch close to Mainz. In the nice atmosphere of Schloss Sörgenloch the INSPIRE group focused on team building processes and internal working strategies. The group also used the occasion to welcome Ulrike Ritzmann, as well as Bertrand Dupé and Marie Böttcher, who will join the group in October 2016. After a very successful first day, the group enjoyed the food and a variety of local wines served on the Schloss Sörgenloch terrace in the evening. On the second day of the workshop the group worked on presentation techniques and communication skills under the guidance of two coaches from an improvisational theater. We thank the participants for two beautiful and very successful days in Sörgenloch.

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"