Project acronym INSULATRONICS
Project Controlling Electric Signals with Insulating Antiferromagnets and Insulating Ferromagnets
Researcher (PI) Arne Brataas
Host Institution (HI) NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU
Country Norway
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE3, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary The proposal aims to facilitate a revolution of information and communication technologies by controlling electric signals with antiferromagnetic insulators and ferromagnetic insulators. We recently discovered that antiferromagnets can be active components in spintronics devices despite their lack of a macroscopic magnetic moment, and even when they are insulating.
Conventional electronics- and spintronics-based logic and memory devices, interconnects, and microwave oscillators are based on (spin-polarized) charge transport, which inherently dissipates power due to ohmic losses. The research proposed seeks to determine the extents to which “Insulatronics” has the potential to control the electric and thermal signal generation, transmission, and detection in more power-efficient ways.
Insulatronics is profoundly different because there are no moving charges involved so the power reduction is significant. We hope to establish the extents to which spin-waves and coherent magnons in antiferromagnetic insulators and ferromagnetic insulators can be strongly coupled to electric and thermal currents in adjacent conductors and utilize this coupling to control electric signals. The coupling will be facilitated by spin-transfer torques and spin-pumping – a technique we pioneered – as well as spin-orbit torques and its reciprocal process of charge-pumping.
The core of this project focuses on the theoretical and fundamental challenges facing Insulatronics. Beyond the duration of the project, if we are successful, the use of spin signals in insulators with extremely low power dissipation may enable superior low-power technologies such as oscillators, logic devices, interconnects, non-volatile random access memories, and perhaps even quantum information processing.
Summary
The proposal aims to facilitate a revolution of information and communication technologies by controlling electric signals with antiferromagnetic insulators and ferromagnetic insulators. We recently discovered that antiferromagnets can be active components in spintronics devices despite their lack of a macroscopic magnetic moment, and even when they are insulating.
Conventional electronics- and spintronics-based logic and memory devices, interconnects, and microwave oscillators are based on (spin-polarized) charge transport, which inherently dissipates power due to ohmic losses. The research proposed seeks to determine the extents to which “Insulatronics” has the potential to control the electric and thermal signal generation, transmission, and detection in more power-efficient ways.
Insulatronics is profoundly different because there are no moving charges involved so the power reduction is significant. We hope to establish the extents to which spin-waves and coherent magnons in antiferromagnetic insulators and ferromagnetic insulators can be strongly coupled to electric and thermal currents in adjacent conductors and utilize this coupling to control electric signals. The coupling will be facilitated by spin-transfer torques and spin-pumping – a technique we pioneered – as well as spin-orbit torques and its reciprocal process of charge-pumping.
The core of this project focuses on the theoretical and fundamental challenges facing Insulatronics. Beyond the duration of the project, if we are successful, the use of spin signals in insulators with extremely low power dissipation may enable superior low-power technologies such as oscillators, logic devices, interconnects, non-volatile random access memories, and perhaps even quantum information processing.
Max ERC Funding
2 140 503 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-12-01, End date: 2020-11-30
Project acronym Local State
Project State Formation Through the Local Production of Property and Citizenship
Researcher (PI) Christian Lund
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Country Denmark
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary The key concern of the proposed research is how political power is established and reproduced through the production of the fundamental social contracts of property and citizenship. We will re-define the research on so-called failed and weak states, by examining what political authority is actually exercised rather than measuring how they fall short of theoretical ideals.
In developing countries with legal and institutional pluralism, no single institution exercises the political authority as such. Different institutions compete to define and enforce rights to property and citizenship. This is most visible at the local level, yet it has implications for theorizing the state as such. Hence, investigating the social production of property and citizenship is a way to study state formation. We study local institutions that exercise political authority and govern access to resources, and recognition of these rights. What institution guarantees what claims as rights, and, especially, how, is crucial, as it leads to the recognition of that particular institution as a political authority. We therefore study statutory as well as non-statutory institutions. We are not simply looking for property deeds and passports etc. issued by statutory government as measurements of political authority. Rather, we look for secondary forms of recognition ‘issued’ by non-statutory institutions that represent mutual acknowledgements of claims even without a narrow legal endorsement. Dynamics such as these are fundamental for a concise understanding of developing country state formation processes.
Ten country studies with rural and urban field sites will be conducted. We focus on concrete controversies. We collect data at several levels and from different sources, including resident groups, land users, local civil servants, local politicians and business-owners, as well as large-scale contractors, municipal politicians and administrators.
Summary
The key concern of the proposed research is how political power is established and reproduced through the production of the fundamental social contracts of property and citizenship. We will re-define the research on so-called failed and weak states, by examining what political authority is actually exercised rather than measuring how they fall short of theoretical ideals.
In developing countries with legal and institutional pluralism, no single institution exercises the political authority as such. Different institutions compete to define and enforce rights to property and citizenship. This is most visible at the local level, yet it has implications for theorizing the state as such. Hence, investigating the social production of property and citizenship is a way to study state formation. We study local institutions that exercise political authority and govern access to resources, and recognition of these rights. What institution guarantees what claims as rights, and, especially, how, is crucial, as it leads to the recognition of that particular institution as a political authority. We therefore study statutory as well as non-statutory institutions. We are not simply looking for property deeds and passports etc. issued by statutory government as measurements of political authority. Rather, we look for secondary forms of recognition ‘issued’ by non-statutory institutions that represent mutual acknowledgements of claims even without a narrow legal endorsement. Dynamics such as these are fundamental for a concise understanding of developing country state formation processes.
Ten country studies with rural and urban field sites will be conducted. We focus on concrete controversies. We collect data at several levels and from different sources, including resident groups, land users, local civil servants, local politicians and business-owners, as well as large-scale contractors, municipal politicians and administrators.
Max ERC Funding
2 469 285 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2021-06-30
