Overview
The group covers all aspects of fundamental physics related to spin electronics by employing a wide range of theoretical approaches including ab initio, tight-binding, free electron and diffusive methods, combined with micromagnetic simulation approaches based on solution of Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation. This allows explaining experimental observations, providing solutions for specific problems and predicting novel properties and phenomena guiding the experimental work to optimize spintronic nanostructures.
Research directions
Electronic structure and magnetic properties of materials from first principles
Ab initio calculations based on DFT are performed in order to provide insights into fundamental mechanisms of various spintronic phenomena, and to propose novel materials and their efficient combinations with required electronic structure and magnetic properties for optimal performance of spintronic devices.
Spin-dependent transport theories
We employ tight-binding, free electron and diffusive approaches including Green function techniques in the framework of Keldysh and Kubo formalisms, in order to describe spin and charge transport properties in magnetic nanostructures with non-collinear magnetic moments in vertical, lateral and complex geometries.
Theoretical concepts for organic and graphene spintronics
The goal of this topic is to harvest theoretically novel spin-dependent properties (e.g. proximity effects and defect induced magnetism etc.) in organic, graphene and related 2D materials based structures in the context of emerging field of graphene spintronics.
Micromagnetic modeling
Magnetization dynamics (macrospin and micromagnetic) simulations under applied magnetic field and/or spin polarized currents are developed to address functionalities of spintronic devices (e.g. magnetization switching, synchronization and modulation for oscillators) in various geometries. Straightforward analytical models are developed to supplement fast and efficient understanding of the magnetization dynamics.
The team
Former members
Post-docs
- Ali HALLAL (2015-2019)
- Sergey NIKOLAEV (2015-2017)
- Debapriya CHAUDHURY (2016-2018)
- Cristian ORTIZ PAUYAC (2016-2017)
- Hongxin YANG (2013-2015)
PhD
- Daniel SOLIS LERMA (2016-2020)
- Paulo COELHO (with Magnetic Sensors Group, 2014-2017)
Internships
- Libor VOJACEK (2020)
- Brian CHARLES (with MRAM Group, 2016)
Projects
- ANR SpinSpike (2021-2024)
- ANR UFO (2021-2024)
- EU H2020 FET Project Flagship “Graphene” Core 3 (2020-2023)
- ANR MAGICVALLEY (2018-2021)
- ANR FEOrgSPIN (2018-2021)
- EU H2020 FET Project Flagship “Graphene” Core 2 (2018-2020)
- ANR JCJC MATEMAC-3D (2017-2020)
- EU H2020 ICT Project “SPICE” (2016-2020)
- EU H2020 ICT Project “GREAT” (2016-2019)
- ANR ELECSPIN (2016-2019)
- EU H2020 FET Project Flagship “Graphene” Core 1 (2016-2018)
- EU FET FP7 Project Flagship “Graphene” (2013-2016)
- EU M-ERA.NET HEUMEM supported via ANR-DFG (2014-2017)
- UGA Émergence et partenariat stratégique avec Western Digital (2015-2017)
- Samsung SGMI (2014-2017)
- ANR SOSPIN (2013-2016)
- ANR NMGEM (2010-2015)
- AGI14SMI15 AGIR (2014-2015)
Partners
- Transilvania University, Brasov, Romania
- IRIG/PHELIQS, Grenoble, France
- Institut Néel, Grenoble, France
- Unité Mixte Physique CNRS/Thalès, Palaiseau, France
- Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Orsay, France
- Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology, Barcelona, Spain
- Institut Jean Lamour, Nancy, France
- Moscow Lomonosov State University, Moscow, Russia
- King Abdullah University of science and technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
- University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR, USA
- Western Digital Corporation, CA, USA
- University of Bielefeld, Germany
- University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, Germany
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
- ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
- NIMTE, Ningbo, China
Recent news
- Magnetic vortex dynamics probed by time-resolved magnetic helicoidal dichroism (September 12th, 2025)
Time-resolved magnetic helicoidal dichroism (MHD) was successfully used to assess the ultra-fast dynamics of magnetization. This first attempt to use an MHD-based technique was demonstrated on a magnetic vortex structure hosted by a permalloy pacman ... - Seminar – Dynamics of orbital angular momentum in confined geometries and the control of THz magnons in antiferromagnets (September 10th, 2025)
On Monday December 2, 2025 we have the pleasure to welcome Egor KISELEV from Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (Germany). He will give a seminar at 11:00 entitled: Dynamics of orbital angular ... - Nanosecond stochastic operation in perpendicular superparamagnetic tunnel junctions (September 08th, 2025)
Superparamagnetic tunnel junctions have emerged as promising stochastic neurons for low-energy cognitive computing. We report, for the first time, nanosecond-scale mean waiting times between magnetization reversals in perpendicularly magnetized tunnel junctions, enabled by a strong ... - Topological analysis and experimental control of DW transformations in cylindrical wires (July 01st, 2025)
Topology is a powerful tool for categorizing magnetization textures by defining a topological index in both two-dimensional (2D) systems, such as thin films or curved surfaces, and in 3D bulk systems. In the emerging field ... - Seminar – Symmetry aspects of antiferromagnets and altermagnets (June 20th, 2025)
On Monday June 30, 2025 at 14:00 Sergey A. NIKOLAEV from Osaka University (Japan) will give online seminar entitled: Symmetry aspects of antiferromagnets and altermagnets Video conference: https://univ-grenoble-alpes-fr.zoom.us/j/98769867024 Meeting ID: 987 6986 7024 Passcode: 025918 Abstract: Antiferromagnets being an ...
