Axel Hoffmann is once again part of the DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center on Quantum-Materials for Energy Efficient Neuromorphic-Comptuting (Q-MEEN-C), which is led by the University of California – San Diego. This center has been renewed for another four year with a total funding of $12.6M. Our main focus is to explore magnetic oscillating systems, which can form complex networks of dynamic systems that may resemble the functionalities found in the natural brain. A detailed description can be found in the accompanying news story.

Our recent paper “Quantum materials for energy-efficient neuromorphic computing: Opportunities and challenges” has been featured by APL Materials, see the accompanying news story.

Our recent publication on “Dynamic fingerprints of synthetic antiferromagnet nanostructure with interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction” has been featured on the cover page of the Journal of Applied Physics.

The Web of Science has selected Axel Hoffmann as a Highly Cited Researcher in 2021, which is the third year in a row. 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 2010-2020.  More details can be found in the Illinois News Feed.

Dreycen Foiles was awarded a DIGI-MAT Fellowship.  The DIGI-MAT program aims at educating graduate students in combining materials and data science.  As part of this fellowship Dreycen Foiles will investigate the use of magnetic skyrmions for more energy efficient novel computation approaches, while concurrently using machine learning techniques for developing new characterization methods for magnetic materials.

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.