Involved Institutes

 

Over the past decades, increasing specialization has led to an ever stronger trend towards a separation of the different scientific disciplines.  Nanoscience, including NANO-SPINTRONICS, however, is an example for a research area where progress and innovation are pushed by interdisciplinary cooperation. Multidisciplinary solutions are required for the study of fundamental relationships between structure and function, and for the selective tailoring thereof, in order to match the needs of applications. Moreover, an interdisciplinary Cluster in nanoscience provides a frame for a convincing, interdisciplinary course of studies for undergraduate and graduate students at our university. Cooperation aiming at new insights into scientific areas at the borders between the traditional disciplines will offer the best conditions for a modern, trans-disciplinary course of studies. The interdisciplinary cooperation between the institutes and departments within our faculty in the specific field of NANO-SPINTRONICS is well established by several cooperative research projects and centers (e.g. SFBs 508 and 668, GrKs 611, 1247, and 1286). While both SFBs and the GrK 611 already provide strong links between different research groups from the Departments of Physics and Chemistry, the GrK 1286 is based on a joint research and training programme for Ph.D. students of the Departments of Physics and Informatics.
On the other hand, the proposed Cluster will clearly go beyond the already existing degree of interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of NANO-SPINTRONICS by incorporating additional research groups from the Institute of Physical Chemistry as well as from the Departments of Informatics and Mathematics. The participating groups from the Institute of Physical Chemistry will bring in their strong expertise in the synthesis and characterization of magnetic nanoparticles and their linkage to molecular systems, thereby significantly broadening our research activities in research areas A and C. Research groups from the Departments of Informatics and Mathematics will strongly support the theoretical modelling and simulation of nano-scale spintronic systems and devices in all three research areas. Moreover, the Zhang group will bring in their expertise in automation of manipulation processes which will be combined with scanning probe-based atomic and molecular manipulation techniques in area C.
The proposed Cluster will also enhance the scientific cooperation between groups from the university and the two large-scale research centers of the Helmholtz Association, DESY and GKSS, in the field of NANO-SPINTRONICS. While the two participating groups from DESY provide direct access to the synchrotron radiation facility of the 3^rd generation PETRA-III and the free-electron laser FLASH, the group from GKSS brings in strong expertise in elastic and inelastic neutron scattering. By combining high-resolution surface-sensitive methods with depth-dependent optical and neutron scattering techniques, complementary information will be gained about structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of novel spintronic systems and devices.