ERC Consolidator Grant for Dr. Felix Gunkel and “Scrambled Oxs”

From model material to real electrode

11-Dec-2025 - Dr. Felix Gunkel from the Electronic Materials Division at the Peter Grünberg Institute (PGI-7) at Forschungszentrum Jülich has been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). Over the next five years, his project “Scrambled Oxs” will receive two million Euros in ...

Light Switch for Electrons: Researchers create conductive interface in nickelate materials

A significant step towards light-controlled electronics

20-Oct-2025 - Using ultraviolet (UV) light, scientists have succeeded in switching an extremely conductive state on and off within seconds at the interface between two oxide materials. This newly discovered ‘light switch for electrons’ is a significant step towards light-controlled electronics and could also ...

Innovative process opens up new perspectives for thin-film technology applications

Researchers developing methods for synthesising material layers using gaseous molecular fragments

24-Jun-2025 - For the past five years, researchers at Leipzig University have been working on fundamentally new methods for selectively assembling gaseous, charged molecular fragments into new, complex molecules. The synthesised substances are deposited onto surfaces. This innovative process opens up new ...

Mesoporous silicon: semiconductor with new talents

03-Mar-2025 - Silicon is the best-known semiconductor material. However, targeted nanostructuring can drastically change the material properties. A team at HZB has now produced mesoporous silicon layers with countless tiny pores using a specially developed etching apparatus and investigated their electrical ...

A spintronic view of the effect of chiral molecules

Researchers verified the chiral-induced spin selectivity effect, i.e., the influence of chiral molecules on spin, using spintronic analytical techniques

04-Feb-2025 - The role of electrons and their negative charge in electric current is well established. Electrons also exhibit other intrinsic properties that are associated, for example, with considerable potential for enhancing data storage devices: the electron's spin or magnetic moment. To date, however, ...

New avenues in quantum research: supramolecular qubit candidates detected

The Franco-German research team shows that supramolecular chemistry enables efficient spin communication through hydrogen bonds

30-Jan-2025 - Qubits are the basic building blocks of information processing in quantum technology. An important research question is what material they will actually consist of in technical applications. Molecular spin qubits are considered promising qubit candidates for molecular spintronics, in particular ...

Nanoislands on silicon with switchable topological textures

23-Jan-2025 - Nanostructures with specific electromagnetic patterns promise applications in nanoelectronics and future information technologies. However, it is very challenging to control those patterns. Now, a team at HZB examined a specific class of nanoislands on silicon with interesting chiral, swirling ...

Falling Walls announces Science Breakthrough of the Year 2023 laureates

“These outstanding breakthroughs will change the face of the world and impressively prove what ingenuity, curiosity and courage can achieve”

14-Sep-2023 - Which are the next walls to fall in science and society? The Falling Walls Foundation has announced the first six laureates of its Science Breakthrough of the Year award. The title is awarded annually and recognizes scientific breakthroughs in all academic disciplines. “These outstanding ...

World's Smallest Battery Can Power Computer with the Size of a Grain of Dust

Shrinking Tesla technology: An application-oriented method for an unsolved problem in microelectronics

22-Feb-2022 - Computers are getting smaller and smaller, just as current cell phones offer computing power similar to that of a laptop. And the trend toward miniaturization continues. Smart dust applications (tiny microelectronic devices), such as biocompatible sensor systems in the body, demand computers and ...

Localized growth of silicon crystals

Fraunhofer IWM presents the »Triboepitaxy« concept

07-Oct-2021 - Four scientists from Freiburg have succeeded for the first time to simulate the localized growth of silicon crystals using shear-induced amorphization and recrystallization. In the future, experts could use this concept to tailor crystalline silicon structures for nanotechnology applications, ...