Spectroscopy of Solids and Interfaces

Department

The aim of the Spectroscopy of Solids and Interfaces department is to investigate the dynamic interplay among different fundamental interactions in both molecular and magnetic materials, and to explore and control excitations, functionalities and the new phases that emerge from them.

The group aims to develop new concepts or materials and their applications, based on the manipulation of the relevant energy scales with spin, charge, and/or light. The emphasis is on phenomena that occur on very short (femtosecond) time and small (nanometer) length scales, that is, the fundamental time and length scales of the relevant physical interactions. Here, interfaces start playing an often dominating role and moreover conventional descriptions of matter in terms of thermodynamics are no longer valid.

The most recent lines of interest include the ultrafast and energy efficient manipulation, storage and processing of information, including brain-inspired or neuromorphic concepts of data processing, machine learning and molecular motors.

The department is part of Institute of Molecules and Materials (IMM).

Highlights

Innovative brain-inspired computing for energy-efficient data processing

09 October 2024 Research news item

During the Innovate MeetUp at the Vibe of the Future Festival in Nijmegen, Professor Theo Rasing talked about innovative brain-inspired computing for energy-efficient data processing.

Radboud voucher project evolves into consortium on neuromorphic computing

12 March 2024 Research news item

With a voucher from the Interdisciplinary Research Platform (IRP), Johan and his colleagues had the opportunity to investigate if it was possible to make scientific calculations more efficient and faster using neuromorphic hardware.

Letters NWO met een trofee icoon in het midden

Grant for research into neuromorphic computing

09 January 2024 Research news item

NWO is awarding a grant to Johan Mentink's research into neuromorphic computers. These computer systems could drastically reduce the energy consumption of hardware in the future.

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Research

The department Spectroscopy of Solids and Interfaces conducts research in the following research areas:

Ultrafast magnetism

Ultrafast magnetism is a research area focused on the behavior of magnetic materials when they are subjected to extremely rapid changes, typically induced by stimuli like femtosecond laser pulses. Under these conditions, conventional descriptions of magnetic phenomena, that substantially rely on the adiabatic approximation, are no longer valid. The key questions in ultrafast magnetism revolve around understanding the highly nonlinear dynamics of spins that are far from equilibrium and determining how long-range magnetic order can form when the local interactions that underpin it are rapidly changing.

Molecular materials

Molecular materials allow for a flexible approach to design new functional materials with specific desirable properties. Scientists are pursuing a supramolecular approach to novel nonlinear optical materials, with well-defined architectures at (sub)wavelength scale that can be used for photonic applications. By gaining full control over the growth of the microstructures the department aims to achieve distinct architecture dependent optical responses in both the linear and nonlinear optical regimes.

Neuromorphic computing

Digital information technology is developing in a breath-taking fashion, leading to an enormous increase in energy consumption, which is already around 7% of the global electrical energy production. Further scaling of existing information technology is reaching fundamental physical and economical barriers, strongly limiting further increases of its performance. Neuromorphic computing is one of the potential candidates to replace part of the existing high performance computing architecture, leading to sustainable development of much more energy-efficient scientific computing (Green HPC) with impact to diverse research fields.