Two QuMat researchers were awarded ERC starter grants in 2022: Marcos Guimaraes from Rijksuniveristeit Groningen and Dmytro Afanasiev from Radboud University.
Both researchers are tackling the increased need for energy-efficient storage and manipulation of information on computers.
QuMat congratulates them both!
Their research is expanded upon on the respective announcement webpages:
Marcos Guimaraes
In his ERC project, Guimaraes will use atomically-thin two-dimensional materials to combine highly efficient magnetic devices with optical communication. The fast development of modern information technology requires smaller devices to consume less energy. Magnetism provides an excellent route for energy-efficient devices, such as hard-disk drives, but they are often slow. Moreover, magnetic information has to be converted into electric currents for it to be transmitted, leading to more power consumption.
Dmytro Afanasiev
Our modern society is driven by data which provides a continuous demand for innovative and sustainable electronic (data storage) devices. Modern data centers are running into the limits of their performance because of their growing energy demand. Therefore, there is a need to develop new ways and technologies for faster and more energy-efficient data processing and storage. Photonics provides more energy-efficient and faster transfer of data. However, processing data at the same rates still is a major challenge.