Nature Communications by TRR 227 scientists
Special metal oxides could one day replace semiconductor materials that are commonly used today in processors. Now, for the first time, an international team of researchers from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the University of Kaiserslautern and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland was able to observe how electronic charge excitation changes electron spin in metal oxides in an ultrafast and inphase manner. The study was published in the journal "Nature Communications".
News from Aug 19, 2020
Using a state-of-the-art, ultra-short pulse laser, the researchers were able to excite an electron to lift it across the band gap in nickel oxide. They also observed how the information was then transferred to the magnetic system. This enabled the team to identify a previously unknown ultrafast coupling mechanism that occurs on a femtosecond scale. "The complex many-body properties generated through the excitation of the electron by the laser have revealed this surprising observation but also made us think long and hard about how to interpret it correctly," explains TRR 227 PI Wolf Widdra (A06).
According to the physicist, the findings now pave the way for ultrafast spintronics. This should facilitate the development of new ultra-fast storage systems and information technologies in the future.
K. Gillmeister, D. Golež, C.-T. Chiang, N. Bittner, Y. Pavlyukh, J. Berakdar, P. Werner, and W. Widdra: Ultrafast coupled charge and spin dynamics in strongly correlated NiO - Nat. Commun. 11: 4095 (2020) - DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17925-8