LIONESS - Light-controlled nanomagnetic and spintronic applications via magneto-thermoplasmonics

在过去50年中，信息技术的重大突破在很大程度上依赖于电子过程的知识、磁状态的利用（例如用于硬盘驱动器的巨磁阻读取头）和激光的使用（例如，CD和光纤）。如今，信息技术无处不在，使我们能够解决越来越复杂的计算问题。如今，一个关键的问题是提高数字设备的效率，加上微型化和提高处理速度，因为计算能力和数据密度的增加带来了能源消耗方面的高成本。更糟糕的是，用于驱动现代芯片的相当大一部分电力没有得到有效利用，而是以热量的形式消散，这可能对设备性能和数据保留产生负面影响。然而，热量本身并不坏，特别有趣的现象可能对未来的计算设备有用，发生在温度分布不均匀的情况下，例如，在一个实施例中，如果设备一侧是热的而其相对侧是冷的，则设备的另一侧是热的。结合磁性材料，这种热差可以用于（i）发电，（ii）移动编码信息位的自旋结构，或（iii）通过其内在的随机性增强非常规计算方案。到目前为止，我们对这些效应的实验理解以及它们有效地集成到设备中受到以下事实的阻碍，即产生热差的当代方法缺乏适用于复杂技术应用的灵活性，因为它们缓慢并且具有大的空间延伸，可能容易损坏，最重要的是，它是不可重构的。从光子学和功能磁性材料领域获得灵感，在这里，我将实现一种新型磁热等离子体器件的混合方法：该奖学金的主要目标是开发一种新型的实验平台，通过光对纳米到微米尺度的温度分布进行快速，精确和可重构的光学控制，用于关键的磁性和自旋电子学应用。具体目标是（i）创建快速和光学可重构的自旋电流发生器，（ii）实验量化自旋纹理的热驱动运动，以进一步理解基本现象，以及（iii）使用光作为非传统纳米磁性计算方案的灵活和高带宽输入。该奖学金产生的研究成果将解决有关非磁性的基本问题，磁性材料的平衡行为，以及新开发的磁热等离子体平台将对自旋电子学、光学可重构超材料和能源领域产生影响。

Major breakthroughs in information technologies over the past 50 years have relied heavily on knowledge of electronic processes, utilisation of magnetic states (such as giant magnetoresistance read heads for hard drives) and usage of lasers (e.g., CDs and fibre optics). Today, information technologies are ubiquitous, allowing us to solve more and more complex computational problems than ever.Nowadays, a key concern is to improve the efficiency of digital devices, coupled with miniaturisation and increased processing speed, as the increase in computational power and data density comes at high costs with respect to energy consumption. This is made worse by the fact that - rather than being used in an effective way - a sizeable fraction of electricity used to drive modern chips gets dissipated as heat, which can have negative effects on device performance and data retention.However, heat itself is not bad, and particularly interesting phenomena potentially useful for future computational devices, occur in situations where the temperature distribution is not uniform, e.g., if one side of a device is hot while its opposite side is cold. In combination with magnetic materials, such heat differentials can be used to (i) generate electricity, (ii) move spin structures that encode information bits, or (iii) enhance unconventional computing schemes by their intrinsic stochasticity. To date, our experimental understanding of these effects, and their effective integration into devices is hampered by the fact that contemporary methods to create heat differentials lack the flexibility to be suitable for miniaturised technological applications, as they are slow and have large spatial extension, can be prone to damage, and - most importantly - are not reconfigurable.Taking inspiration from the field of photonics and functional magnetic materials, here I will implement a hybrid approach for novel magneto-thermoplasmonic devices: The main objective of the Fellowship is to develop a novel experimental platform enabling fast, precise, and reconfigurable optical control of nano- to microscale temperature distributions by light for key magnetic and spintronic applications. Specific aims are to (i) create fast and optically reconfigurable spin current generators, (ii) experimentally quantify the thermally driven motion of spin textures to further our understanding of fundamental phenomena, and (iii) use light as a flexible and high-bandwidth input for unconventional nanomagnetic computation schemes.The research outputs generated with the Fellowship will tackle fundamental questions regarding non-equilibrium behaviour of magnetic materials, and the newly developed magneto-thermoplasmonic platform will generate impact on the areas of spintronics, optically reconfigurable metamaterials, and energy.