Seminar Dr. Can Avci from European Magnetism Association on Vimeo.

On May 13th 2025 Dr. Silvia Damerio was invited to deliver an EMA Early-Career e-seminar entitled "Tunable spin and orbital torques in Cu-based magnetic heterostructures". The recording is accessible through the EMA website: https://magnetism.eu/302-recordings-2025.htm.

EMA Early-Career Seminars

The European Magnetism Association (EMA) leads a series of online seminars to ensure the broad visibility of its members and their work, while maintaining a low carbon footprint. The series is a good opportunity to reflect on and otherwise encourage the geographical, thematic and gender diversity of the researchers working in the field of magnetism. The e-seminar series are streamed via Zoom and live-streamed on the EMA twitch channel and intend to feature and promote early-stage researchers. For more information visit the EMA website: link.

Dr. J. Alejandro De Sousa has participated in the program “Bojos per la Ciència-Física” organized by Fundaciò Catalunya La Pedrera.

This year Dr. Silvia Damerio has participated with several other ICMAB researchers in the 7th edition of the programme #Científiques organized by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI) and the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST). The initiative aims to inspire and help overcome gender stereotypes, highlighting the talent of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

#Científiques programme

#científiques is an initiative organized as part of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (February 11), in which female scientists from public and private entities across Catalonia give informative talks at educational centers throughout the country.  Running since 2019, six editions have been held. #científiques is aimed, on one hand, at female scientists from public and private entities in Catalonia and, on the other, at 6th grade primary school and 1st year secondary school students in Catalan educational centers.

More information: https://cientifiques.cat/cientifiques_2025/

Engineering Chiral Interactions and Current-induced Switching in Magnetic Heterostructures for Efficient Spintronics
PhD Candidate: Stefano Fedel

Date: Friday, 28 November 2025
Time: 11.00 AM
Venue: Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

Abstract
This thesis investigates chiral magnetic interactions and current-induced control of magnetization in complex magnetic heterostructures to advance the development of spintronic technologies. The work explores how interfacial effects, material composition, and structural properties influence chiral interactions and spin–orbit torques (SOTs), which are key for efficient magnetic switching. It demonstrates that interface engineering and ultrathin metallic layers can strongly enhance performance while reducing energy consumption. The study also reports the observation and control of complex chiral magnetic textures, such as spiral domains, in metallic multilayers. Overall, the research provides new insights into the mechanisms governing chiral magnetism and spin–orbit phenomena, offering design principles for future low-power, high-speed spintronic devices and magnetic memory technologies.

Supervisor:
Can Onur Avci, ICMAB-CSIC
PhD Committee:
President: Sergio O. Valenzuela, ICN2, Spain
Secretary: Saul Velez, UAM, Spain
Vocal: Stefania Pizzini, Institut Néel, CNRS, France
University: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)

PhD Programme: Materials Science

From 30 November - 1 December 2023 the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) hosted a new school within the ICMAB Series of Schools on Frontiers in Materials Science and Condensed Matter. A school on ORBITRONICS, the latest twist on understanding and exploiting angular momentum transport in solids.

Dr. Can Onur Avci has been invited to deliver a seminar entitled "Spintronics with rare-earth iron garnets: opportunities and challenges" held on May 26 20206 at 12:00 in the conference hall of the IMDEA Nanociencia Insitute in Madrid.

On November 18th 2025 Dr. Silvia Damerio delivered an invited seminar at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The talk entitled "Engineering spin and orbitronic materilas via ionic motion" was part of a mini seminar series on magnetism and spintronics hosted by Prof. Tamalika Banerjee.

On 26-27 January 2026 we will host the CHIRAL SPINTRONICS 2026, the 6th Edition of “ICMAB Schools on Frontiers in Materials Science and Condensed Matter”. 

The ICMAB School on Chiral Spintronics 2026 provides an exciting opportunity to explore these concepts through a focused two-day program. The school will cover the theoretical foundations of chiral magnetism and its manifestations in real materials, as well as the latest experimental techniques and device perspectives. Lectures will be delivered by leading researchers in the field and are designed to be self-contained, making them accessible to early career scientists. Participants will gain insight into the mechanisms that govern chiral spin textures and their potential for enabling low-power, high-density spintronic devices. The school will also include roundtable discussions, poster sessions and plenty of opportunities for interaction to foster engagement and collaboration.

Participants will be able to attend in-person or online. On site participants will also be able to submit the abstract for a poster. The best poster abstract will be promoted to contributed talk. There will also be a poster prize for the best poster presentation!

For more info check the school's website: https://chiralspin2026.icmab.es/

The Seminars and Training Committee kindly invites you to the following ICMAB Seminar, hosted by Can Onur Avci:

"Oxide heterointerfaces: a rich playground for emerging computing approaches"

by Tamalika Banerjee, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

Monday 18 May 2026, 12.00 PM

ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

Abstract

Spintronics has opened many avenues in condensed matter, revolutionized the data storage industry and holds rich prospects for unconventional computing approaches. Conventional computing is based on the von Neumann architecture which is limited by a memory bottleneck, high power consumption and heat dissipation. This is primarily due to the non-colocation of memory and processing units, making the hardware sequential and deterministic. These challenges can be efficiently tackled by processing the information on the signal, similar to what the human brain does. This has spurred the development of alternative, domain-specific computing paradigms beyond the conventional von-Neumann architecture using analogue devices, known as memristors, that  collocate memory and processing in the same functional unit. The material class of complex oxides, where the fundamental thrust is on understanding the strong correlations between the electron charge, spin and  orbital degrees of freedom has established itself as an important material system for designing memristors.

In this seminar, I will discuss two broad examples on how the rich phase space, intrinsic to complex oxides, can be exploited in thin films and in their heterointerfaces for this purpose. In the first example an all-oxide magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) of SrRuO3 (SRO)/SrTiO3 (STO)/SRO, exhibiting a strong  perpendicular magnetic anisotropy will be discussed. MTJs utilizing electrodes with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy are of great interest for future nonvolatile memory and logic chips. This stack shows a large TMR, which cannot be explained using the conventional tunneling spin polarization principles but needs to incorporate the symmetry mismatch between the propagating Bloch states of the minority and majority spin bands of SRO (001). Interestingly this MTJ exhibits atleast three stable resistance states, opening pathways for unconventional computing approaches.

In the second example, we show how an entire network of strained films of La0.67Sr0.33MnO3  demonstrates complex biologically plausible brain functionalities such as self-oscillation and integrate and fire neurons. This arises due to a combination of an intrinsic coupled phase transition in La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 and octahedral distortion due to the textured surface of the LAlO3 substrate leading to multiple negative differential resistance (NDR) regimes in the network, at room temperature. This leads to the demonstration of voltage-tunable oscillators, dynamically oscillating at variable frequencies (kHz to MHz). I will also discuss how the time dynamics of the integrate, and fire neuron network leads to the development of probabilistic bits, useful for ultra-low power stochastic hardware.

Short bio

Tamalika Banerjee is a Rosalind Franklin Fellow, Professor & Chair of Spintronics of Functional Materials group at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, and member of CogniGron Centre. Her research group primarily works on Oxide Spintronics and their devices for brain-inspired computing. She is also the Founder (2024) of IMChip, whose patented technology is used for neuromorphic computing hardware for sustainable and responsible AI applications.

She is also a Visiting Faculty at CeNSE, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India (2026- ).

She also held a Scientific Associate Investigator position at FLEET, ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies, Australia (till 2024)

She obtained her PhD from the University of Madras, India, followed by post doctoral stays at the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, MIT, USA, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, and MESA⁺ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. She is a Senior member of IEEE.

Hosted by Can Onur Avci, from the MULFOX group (Materials for Electronics Research Line)

>>If you want to meet the speaker, please contact the host at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Join it to discuss the latest advances in experimental and theoretical spintronics.