The IEEE Magnetics Society, Chicago Chapter announced that the 2021 IEEE Chicago Early Career Award in Magnetics will be awarded to Saima Siddiqui for her achievements in “novel magnetic systems for in-memory computing and neurotrophic devices”.  The award will be conferred during the 3rd Joint Annual Meeting of the IEEE Magnetics Society and Nanotechnology Chicago Chapters, which will be hosted virtually on December 3rd, 2021.

The American Physical Society announced that the 2022 David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics will be awarded to Axel Hoffmann “For pioneering work, engaging lectures, and comprehensive reviews advancing the understanding of spin transport and magnetization dynamics in magnetic multilayers.”

Further details can be found here:
APS official Announcement
UIUC News Story

Our research group received funding of $4.2M over three years from the Department of Energy (DOE) to explore magnetic materials for quantum information systems.  Magnons, the fundamental excitations of magnetically ordered systems, have inherent chiral properties, which can give rise to non-reciprocal behavior.  In other words, magnetic materials may provide one-way streets for quantum information, which may be useful to reduce unwanted noise and therefore may enhance the efficiencies of quantum computers.  This project is a broad collaboration that includes additional research groups at UIUC (Pfaff, Schleife, and Zuo), as well as researchers at Argonne National Laboratory (Li and Novosad).  More information can be found here.

Our recent research article “Proximity-induced anisotropic magnetoresistance in magnetized topological insulators” was featured by Applied Physics Letters.  This article discusses the magnetoresistance in bilayers of topological insulators (Bi2Se3) and ferrimagnetic insulator (Y3Fe5O12; YIG).  We observe that the orientation of the magnetization YIG controls the magnitude of the gap in the electronic band structure of the adjacent topological insulator.

Our PhD student Robin Klause received a ThinkSwiss Scholarship for a research visit to Switzerland.  He will work during the summer of 2021 in the group of Prof. Pietro Gambardella at the ETH Zürich in order to investigate spin-orbit torques in non-collinear antiferromagnetic metals.

Our recent research article on “Distinguishing antiferromagnetic spin sub lattices via the spin Seebeck effect” was featured by Physical Review B as an “Editor’s Suggestion”.  This article discusses how electric voltages generated by temperature gradients across an antiferromagnetic Cr2O3 film enable to get detailed insights into the spin structure of this film.  This provides a new, easy-to-implement method for resolving changes of the magnetic structures of antiferromagnets.

More details can be found here and the full article is available here:
https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.103.L020401

The Web of Science has selected Axel Hoffmann as a Highly Cited Researcher in 2020. The list recognizes leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world. It is based on an analysis of journal article publication and citation data, an objective measure of a researcher’s influence, from 2009-2019.  More details can be found in the Illinois News Feed.

Our recent Perspective article on “Dynamic excitations of chiral magnetic textures” was featured by APL Materials as an “Editor’s Pick”.  This perspective article discusses the different type of dynamic magnetic excitations that occur in chiral magnetic materials with a specific focus on skyrmions.  In particular we also discuss what the experimental hurdles are to observe them, and how these excitations may inform new applications, such as information technologies.

More details can be found here and the full article is available here: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0027042 

 

Our recent Perspective article on “Hybrid magnonics: Physics, circuits, and applications for coherent information processing” was featured by the Journal of Applied Physics.  This perspective article focuses on the fundamental physics and device application of hybrid magnon modes, particularly with their potential for coherent information processing.  This build on the recent rapid developments of magnon-based hybrid systems, which seek to combine magnonic excitations with diverse excitations for transformative applications in devices, circuits, and information processing. Key to their promising potentials is that magnons are highly tunable excitations and can be easily engineered to couple with various dynamic media and platforms.

Axel Hoffmann presented a colloquium on “Topological Quasiparticles: Magnetic Skyrmions” via a remote presentation at Case Western University on September 17, 2020.  A recording of this talk is available at by following this link.