Saving Energy: Storing Data with Topological Magnets

Jülich, 17 November 2017 – Storing, reading, and writing information quickly, using as little energy as possible, and densely on a tiny space are basic requirements for present-day and future information storage devices. Magnetic materials, as employed in billions of hard drives, are extensively tested information carriers. Physicists from Forschungszentrum Jülich have now shown that the magnetic orientation in certain insulators can be controlled even better with the aid of electric fields. The scientists additionally used computer simulations to identify promising materials, in which this phenomenon could be experimentally proven.