Novel oxide materials promise next-generation electronics

Issued: Fri, 03 Dec 2010 09:39:00 GMT

(December 2010)   Dr. Donald MacLaren, Dr. Damien McGrouther and Prof. John Chapman embark on a major new collaboration to develop oxide microelectronics.   An advantage of these exciting materials is the ability to independently switch their magnetic and electric states so that a single device can store vastly more data than conventional "on/off" binary technology.  The materials are also stable at high temperatures, making them suitable for operation in extreme environments.

The research, funded by the European Commission and worth €11.3 million, is a collaboration between 16 academic and industrial partners from across Europe.  It includes Fiat, who is interested in developing automotive sensors.  Other partners bring world-leading expertise in theory, materials deposition, device fabrication and high resolution analysis.  The Glasgow team will provide structural and magnetic characterisation of the new devices using electron microscopy, to generate a nanometre-resolved understanding of the emergent physics.

This research has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement n° 246102. Further details can be found at http://www.ifox-project.eu/

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