May 2023

Researchers from the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), Konkuk University, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and Pusan National University have pioneered the world's first transistor capable of controlling skyrmions. This breakthrough paves the way for the development of next-generation ultra-low-power devices and is anticipated to make significant contributions to quantum and AI research. 

Skyrmions, arranged in a vortex-like spin structure, are unique because they can be miniaturized to several nanometers, making them movable with exceptionally low power. This characteristic positions them as a crucial element in the evolution of spintronics applications.

A joint Collaborative Research Centre between Leipzig University and Chemnitz University of Technology will receive multi-million funding. The Collaborative Research Centre, to be known as HYP*MOL, will bring together 29 professors and early career researchers from both universities, as well as other external research partners, to study electron and nuclear spin hyperpolarization in molecular systems.

“This funding is both a cause for celebration and a great incentive for everyone involved,” says Professor Eva Inés Obergfell, Rector of Leipzig University. “Hyperpolarization is an exciting and rapidly evolving field of research. I believe that our research team will contribute new insights that will be appreciated at an international level.” Leipzig University is now involved in 16 Collaborative Research Centres and represents five of them. “This is something to be proud of and should encourage us to submit more applications.”

Researchers from the University of Nottingham, Diamond Light Source, Czech Academy of Sciences and The University of New South Wales have shown for the first time how electrical creation and control of magnetic vortices in an antiferromagnet can be achieved, a discovery that could increase the data storage capacity and speed of next generation devices.

The team used magnetic imaging techniques to map the structure of newly formed magnetic vortices and demonstrate their back-and-forth movement due to alternating electrical pulses. 

Researchers from Brown University, Michigan State University, Columbia University, Sandia National Laboratories in the U.S, Japan's National Institute for Materials Science and Austria's University of Innsbruck have observed low-energy collective excitations in twisted bilayer graphene near the magic angle, using a resistively detected electron spin resonance technique. 

For many years, scientists have been trying to directly manipulate the spin of electrons in 2D materials like graphene. Doing so could yield key advances in the world of 2D electronics, a field where super-fast, small and flexible electronic devices carry out computations based on quantum mechanics. Standing in the way is that the typical way in which scientists measure the spin of electrons — an essential behavior that gives everything in the physical universe its structure — usually doesn’t work in 2D materials. This makes it incredibly difficult to fully understand the materials and propel forward technological advances based on them. But a team of scientists led by Brown University researchers believe they now have a way around this longstanding challenge. 

Researchers from Tohoku University in Japan, University of California Riverside and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology detail a decade of research advancements in the emerging field of antiferromagnetic spintronics that holds the promise of moving beyond today’s world of electrons moving through semiconductors.

As computers and other electronic devices become faster and more powerful, they are coming closer to a physical limitation caused by heat generated by the electrons that carry information as they move through semiconductors. “Making heat is a fundamental limit that will prevent the further development of electronic devices. So, we are basically hitting a bottleneck because our computers are way faster than they used to be two decades ago,” said Ran Cheng, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering with UCR’s Bourns College of Engineering. Workarounds like cooling systems can go only so far as artificial intelligence, machine learning, video streaming, and other applications demand faster and faster computer processing and memory retrievals.