Project:

The International Centre for Interfacing Magnetism and Superconductivity with Topological Matter (MagTop)

Authors:

professor Tomasz Dietl and professor Tomasz Wojtowicz

Financial support:

39 946 800,00 PLN

Project location:

The Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw

Foreign strategic partner:

The University of Würzburg

Field of research:

Physics (low temperature physics / condensed matter physics / semiconductor physics)

Project aims:

Interdisciplinary research on materials science, nanotechnology and the physics of semiconductors, as well as research on magnetism and superconductivity, which should lead to development of new topological materials.

The International Centre for Interfacing Magnetism and Superconductivity with Topological Matter

The project submitted by Prof. Tomasz Dietl and Prof. Tomasz Wojtowicz from the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw will receive nearly PLN 40 million for pursuing innovative research at a new scientific institution in Poland.

The new research centre will be established in Warsaw and will be known as the International Centre for Interfacing Magnetism and Superconductivity with Topological Matter (MagTop). The director of the project and of the new institution is Prof. Tomasz Dietl from the Institute of Physics at the Polish Academy of Sciences. At the centre, interdisciplinary research will be conducted on materials science, nanotechnology and the physics of semiconductors, as well as research on magnetism and superconductivity, which should lead to development of new topological materials. Research on these materials will be conducted by leading researchers from

Poland and abroad selected in international competitions. During the first few years of funding of the project, there are to be 6 research teams operating at the centre, employing about 30 scientists. They will use the unique research infrastructure offered by the Polish partner in the project, the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The new institution will also cooperate with other research centres abroad and in Poland (including the University of Rzeszów), and firms such as VIGO System SA, Modern Technologies and Filtration SA, and Puremat Technologies. The quality of the research work and the competitions for research group leaders will be overseen by an international research committee made up of scientists of globally recognized accomplishment as well as entrepreneurs with experience conducting R&D work and implementing new technologies. The institution created by professors Dietl and Wojtowicz will cooperate closely with the University of Würzburg, which will contribute knowhow in science administration, commercialization of research results, and finding research work for the best scientists.

PROF. TOMASZ DIETL

(Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Warsaw, and Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Japan) is a specialist in the physics of semiconductors, low-temperature physics, the physics of magnetism, spintronics and nanotechnology.

He has won recognition for his pioneering research on ferromagnetic semiconductors and development of methods for magnetic ordering and quantum location of carriers. This opened the way to creation of a new field of science: semiconductor spintronics. Winner of the Agilent Europhysics Prize (2005) and the Foundation for Polish Science Prize (2006) for development of the theory, confirmed in recent years, of dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors, and demonstration of new methods for controlling magnetization. Director of numerous research projects.

Winner of an ERC Advanced Grant (2009–2013) and member of the Scientific Council and the Steering Committee of the European Research Council (2011–2014). Awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2013). http://www.ifpan.edu.pl/~dietl

PROF. TOMASZ WOJTOWICZ

is an experimental physicist. He is involved in the technology of producing and testing semiconductor nanostructures. He is a world-renowned specialist in technologies for fabricating nanostructures using the molecular beam epitaxy method. His most important scientific achievements in recent years include demonstrating, together with colleagues from the University of Regensburg, the action of a new type of spin transistor whose functioning is based on the use of the internal momentum (spin) of electrons, and not their electrical charge as is the case in currently used transistors.

He recently also made a major contribution to research on semiconductor nanowires, quasi-one-dimensional objects with a diameter on the order of tens of nanometres and micrometric lengths. Prof. Wojtowicz is the co-author of over 500 original scientific works in the field of the physics of semiconductors and over 100 invited or plenary papers at international conferences and schools. He has directed and executed a number of research projects, including the prestigious Maestro project from the National Science Centre. He has spent over 7 years of his professional career abroad, working in various research centres in Europe, Japan and the United States (including Notre Dame and Purdue). He has received a Fulbright fellowship, a Mistrz/Master professorial grant from the Foundation for Polish Science, and an outgoing study grant from FNP.

He is the director of the Low-Dimensional Structures Technologies Team at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Prof. Wojtowicz was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit and the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and in 2013 he was recognized for his scientific accomplishments with the prestigious Award of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for Distinguished Achievement in the Category of Basic Research.