A Japanese–German research consortium aims to harness a special class of magnetic materials for ultrafast, energy-efficient data processing: antiferromagnets. The network is coordinated by Prof. Dr. István Kézsmárki at the University of Augsburg and brings together five leading research groups from Japan and Germany.

Physicists at the University of Augsburg together with collaborators from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Rutgers University, USA, have successfully switched an antiferromagnetic state in an insulator by voltage pulses, within just a few tens of billionths of a second. Their findings were recently published in Physical Review Letters.?

Physicists from the University of Augsburg have achieved an important breakthrough in their work with so-called Kitaev materials - a basis for quantum spin liquids. This insight from basic research is important for the development of future technologies. The results, which were obtained at the Chair of Experimental Physics VI, were published in the highly renowned journal Nature Communications.