ICMM host first COMRAD meeting for a new generation of scientists on opto-magnetic data storage

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The Institute of Materials Science of Madrid (ICMM), CSIC, is hosting the first COMRAD meeting for a new generation of scientists. This is a EU-funded project whose aim is to create an initial training network for early-stage researchers to gain a broad understanding of the challenges of Opto-magnetic data storage development.

The meeting, coordinated by Oksana Chubykalo-Fesenko, Senior Scientist at ICMM, is a training for a new generation of scientists and ambassadors of science in commerce in the spirit of the newly emerging supra-disciplinary field of ultrafast magnetism and spin-orbitronics that has a potentially high impact on information technologies.

During the event, which is taking place at ICMM on the 1st and 2nd of December, 13 Ph.D. students are making presentations and other scientific training: "We have a round table on the research career with ICMM participants, there is a talk on how to write research articles and two invited talks, then also networking times", explains Chubykalo-Fesenko.

Researchers are exploring novel routes for the fastest possible and least dissipative magnetic switching in random access devices by merging ultrafast magnetism and spin-orbitronics. Magnetization switching using light could be in the order of picoseconds, which is hundreds of times faster than what is possible with current information storage technology.

One of the key objectives is to use the knowledge of ultrafast magnetism and spintronics to develop low dissipation sub-100 ps spin-orbitronics as a new scientific area at the junction of coherent nonlinear optics, femtosecond magnetism, and nanospinorbitronics. They will also initiate developments of devices, such as unprecedentedly fast (THz) energy-efficient magnetic memory and fs scanning probe microscopes.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 861300.

The partners of the project are Radboud University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Regensburg, the University of Bialystok, the University of York, SPINTEC, Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Eindhoven University of Technology, Université de Lorraine, Forschungsz centrum Jülich GmbH, THALES, Lancaster University and Interactive Fully Electrical Vehicles srl I-FEVS. It also counts TECHNO-NT, Torino e-district, Hitachi Cambridge, and NXP Semiconductors as partner organizations.