Radboud University: ERC Advanced Grant for research on ultrafast and energy efficient data storage

ERC Advanced Grants are annually granted for exceptional, innovative and ground-breaking research. The researchers can use this funding to continue their research for the next five years.

Ultrafast & green data storage
In today’s society, there is a continuous demand for innovative and sustainable electronic (data storage) devices. However, modern data centres are running into the limits of their performance because of their growing energy demand. Therefore, there is a need to develop new ways and technologies for faster and more energy-efficient data processing and storage.

Data storage and non-volatile memory processing are mainly based on ferromagnets. Antiferromagnets have a much faster spin dynamics than ferromagnets and make it possible to write magnetic bits with the help of femtosecond laser pulses. However, strong magnetic fields are required to control their magnetic moments. In the project SPARTACUS, Kimel wants to tackle this fundamental problem and achieve the fastest writing of bits at write-rewrite rates surpassing the 1 THz landmark at the lowest level of dissipation.

“We all know the dilemma of energy and time – if you want to do something fast, it will cost more energy. The ambition of the project is to resolve this dilemma in magnetic data storage, to discover fundamentally new ways to write magnetic bits in both fast and energy efficient way using antiferromagnets and femtosecond laser pulses”, says Alexey Kimel.