Symposia Further both Research and Outreach
The Nanosystems Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems (TANMS), a multi-institutional NSF-funded ERC led by the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), focuses on research, technology translation, and education to enable increased energy efficiency, reduced physical size, and increased power output in consumer electronics. To help communicate progress and help shape its research agenda, TANMS conducted two well-attended virtual Annual Research Strategy Meetings (ARSM) symposia over two weeks in February 2021 with 48 invited presentations and 27 posters
For the last several decades, engineering has significantly progressed the ability to miniaturize electromagnetic devices, e.g., cell phones, computers, and wireless communication devices. However, the field is quickly reaching an impasse to further miniaturization, mainly due to a reliance on inefficient electrical currents to produce and control magnetism on a small scale. Multiferroics are materials that simultaneously exhibit more than one primary ferroic property (e.g., ferromagnetic and ferroelectric). TANMS’ mission is to engineer a revolution in miniature electromagnetic electronics by developing a new class of nanoscale multiferroic materials. The annual ASRM increases academic, industry, and government awareness of and support for this work while facilitating transition of the technology to industry. The 2021 events were attended by 132 researchers from across the country and yielded a report that will serve as an initial roadmap to explore multiferroic applications further. It also included a closed-door session with the U.S. government to discuss funding opportunities
TANMS’s vision is to develop a fundamentally new approach coupling electricity to magnetism using engineered nanoscale multiferroic elements. The Center’s approach involves intrinsic magnetic property manipulation, i.e., magnetic spin reorientation, in a multiferroic. If properly designed, this magnetoelectric coupling is extremely large on the small scale where exchange coupling tightly binds adjacent atomic level spins, creating single magnetic domains. The introduction of this new approach to applications for electromagnetic control is a revolutionary advancement that is dramatically different from inefficient methods currently used in a wide range of electromagnetic devices.
