Topological textures in antiferroic and ferroic materials

Topological textures are currently gathering a lot of interest in the materials science community. While skyrmions have been thoroughly investigated in ferromagnetic materials, their analog in antiferromagnetic or (anti-)ferroelectric materials would benefit from several advantages such as THz dynamics or nanometer sizes. This symposium aims at bringing together the communities of nanomagnetism and ferroelectricity.

Scope:

Systems exhibiting ferroic orders (electric, magnetic, elastic…) have proven to be the cornerstone of materials science. Their interests range from fundamental opened issues and a rich underlying physics to cutting edge technological opportunities. Indeed, with the end of Moore’s law in sight, new schemes must be devised to achieve energy efficient, high density and high-speed data storage and processing. To this end, a new ingredient in today’s condensed-matter physics that may fuel next-generation information technology is topology. This latter is first defined as a mathematical concept which focuses on the object whose physical properties are preserved under continuous deformation. Regarding ferroic textures, one of the direct implications of topology in real space, is the emergence of objects with interesting and peculiar properties such as vortices, skyrmions, merons, hopfions etc… These solitonic objects have been found mainly in magnetic materials like ferromagnets and nowadays the limelight is also focused on ferroelectrics in which chiral polar objects have been evidenced. Interestingly, their antiferroic counterparts such as antiferromagnetism or antiferroelectricity would provide outstanding extra properties e.g. a THz capabilities or an increased robustness. For long these two large and active communities (magnetism / ferroelectrics) were progressing side by side but not in synergy. In the past few years a clear momentum tends to push them to join their forces in these studies, as for instance, the EU FET Open project “TSAR ” which supports this symposium initiative. This symposium will bring together a large panel of approaches and skills to tackle topology in ferroic materials.

Hot topics to be considered:

• Topology in oxides
• Polar superlattices
• Antiferroelectrics
• Multiferroics
• Light-induced phenomena & Ultrafast dynamics in ferroic materials
• Antiferromagnetic spintronics
• Nanoscale phenomena in ferroelectrics
• Theory and modelisation

List of invited speakers (confirmed):

• Igor LUKYANCHUK University of Picardie
• Peng WEI University of Warwick
• Dennis MEIER NTNU
• Patrycja PARUCH University of Geneva
• Mathias KLAEUI Johannes Gutenberg University
• Nicolas REYREN Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales
• Javier JUNQUERA Universidad de Cantabria
• Dorin RUSU University College London
• Titiksha SRIVASTAVA C2N University Paris Saclay
• Oleg TRETIAKOV UNSW
• Philippe GHOSEZ University of Liège
• Aurore FINCO Laboratoire Charles Coulomb, CNRS
• Mojca OTONICAR Jozef Stefan Institute
• Mengfan GUO University of Cambridge
• Stanislas ROHART Université Paris Saclay
• Salia CHERIFI-HERTEL Strasbourg University/CNRS
• Marty GREGG Queens University Belfast
• Pavlo ZUBKO University College London
• Gustau CATALAN ICREA and ICN2
• Jorge INIGUEZ Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology
• Bastian PFAU Max Born Institute
• Ana SANCHEZ University of Warwick