Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics

With twelve Synergy Grants, the Max Planck Society claims top spot in the ERC ranking

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The Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and V.N. Karasin University cooperate in spintronics research

Stuart Parkin honoured as Clarivate Citation Laureate

This physicist changed our world: It was Stuart Parkin’s developments in spintronics that first made Facebook and Google possible, as well as many other computer applications without which our everyday lives are now barely conceivable. Parkin has been Director at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle for one year now. For his colleagues there, his energy is impressive and challenging in equal measure.

Computers today serve as a jukebox, movie archive and photo album, and must thus provide fast access to ever-larger amounts of data. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart and the Halle-based Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics are paving the way for magnetic storage materials that make this possible, cleverly taking advantage of the unique laws of the nanoworld.

Precision graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) represent promising candidates for next-generation nanoelectronics and spintronics due to their intriguing and tailorable electronic properties. The Department of Synthetic Materials and Functional Devices at the MPI of Microstructure Physics engages in developing synthetic strategies to precisely engineer GNRs with specific structural topologies. This approach aims to fine-tune the bandgaps, charge carrier mobilities, and topological states of GNRs, facilitating their seamless integration into a myriad of nanoelectronics and spintronics applications.

The Department of Nanophotonics, Integration, and Neural Technology at the MPI of Microstructure Physics is developing wafer-scale photonic circuit technologies to miniaturize and increase the integration density of optical systems. Such microchip technologies can transform numerous applications, such as displays, quantum information, and sensing.  The Department is using these capabilities to create a set of multifunctional implantable chips that interface with the brain to advance neuroscience. The systems are being deployed to neuroscience labs for exploratory and health research.

The physics of low-dimensional systems has been a topic of great interest. Recently, two-dimensional (2D) materials exhibiting long-range magnetic order have been in the spotlight. Using state-of-the art molecular beam epitaxy, we constructed the first large-area 2D ferromagnet - a single CrCl₃ monolayer on Graphene-on-Silicon-Carbide substrate - which exhibits an easy-plane magnetic anisotropy (2D-XY universality class). This discovery offers a suitable platform to observe exotic phenomena with application potential, such as 2D spin superfluidity and topologically protected magnetic textures.

Two-dimensional (2D) ferroics displaying magnetic, ferroelectric, or ferroelastic order have recently been discovered. These materials are attracting tremendous interest in the research community both because of the novel physics they host, as well as their potential for next generation nanoelectronics. Our institute explores, synthesizes and characterizes novel 2D ferroics with the aim of using them in innovative energy-efficient devices.

Spintronics is a field of research that focuses on the fundamental physics and applications of spin-based phenomena. To date spintronics has played a key role in the development of recording heads that are used in magnetic disk drives and in a high-performance, solid-state, non-volatile magnetic random access memory. A third spintronics technology, the magnetic Racetrack memory, has the potential to supplant magnetic disk drives: this article discusses the discovery of several novel magnetic nano-objects, so-called “skyrmions” that could encode the data within Racetrack Memory.