
Scientific Concept

The process of digital transformation has led to a massive growth in especially the number and diversity of IoT devices that generate data. The demand for data storage capacity will continue to increase dramatically. There is thus a demand for new storage devices that have higher capacity and performance.
The ever-increasing energy consumption makes it difficult to achieve the goals of EU climate neutral strategy. Therefore breakthrough research in the field of energy efficient data storage and computing devices, as well as advanced and energy efficient technologies for the manufacture of these devices is needed.

Spintronics is an efficient way towards significant reduction of energy consumption. It goes beyond the charge-based memory and computing devices of today and, thereby, has the potential to create next-generation electronic devices that have the potential for low power data storage (e.g. racetrack memory), energy efficient computing, including neuromorphic computing, ultrafast diodes, and transistors for high-performance photovoltaics, spintronic structures for on-chip energy harvesting.
Spintronic structures require advanced methods for the deposition of atomically thin layers with predetermined properties compatible with mass manufacturing.

Applying of advanced plasma technologies can also significantly reduce a carbon footprint: novel focused ion beam deposition methods can drastically reduce the amount of wasted materials towards energy-efficient and ecology friendly production of electronic components; control of particles energy during deposition (e.g. in magnetron sputtering) is a way to reduce energy for substrate heating which is necessary to achieve epitaxial growth and in the same time leads to reduce the amount of defects in multi-layered structures, novel selective and precise plasma etching technologies will lead to decrease the amount of fabrication steps in production lines.
The uniqueness of our concept lies in the combination of the knowledge and experience in theoretical plasma science and stochastic processes with research and know-how of Karazin University and KIPT in the field of plasma technologies, which together with the world leading expertise of the MPI Halle in spintronics will lead to the creation of unique energy-efficient types of memory devices and computing.