Researchers demonstrated that polar skyrmions—cousins of magnetic skyrmions but comprising swirls of electric dipoles instead of spins—exhibit chirality in a material with electrically switchable properties. Control of such phenomena could one day lead to low-power, nonvolatile data storage as well as to high-performance computers. Read more »
Superconductor Exhibits “Glassy” Electronic Phase
Researchers discovered that electrons in a high-temperature superconductor can exhibit a new type of collective behavior that is more “glassy” (disordered) than expected. The study provides valuable insight into the nature of collective electron behaviors and how they relate to high-temperature superconductivity. Read more » 
Electric Skyrmions Charge Ahead for Next-Generation Data Storage
Researchers have observed chirality for the first time in polar skyrmions in a material with reversible electrical properties. The combination of polar skyrmions and these electrical properties could one day lead to applications such as more powerful data storage devices that hold information even after a device has been powered off. Read more »
Oxygen Vacancies Matter in the LaNiO3 Metal–Insulator Transition
Electronic structure measurements using x-ray absorption spectroscopy suggest that oxygen vacancies contribute to the metal–insulator transition in ultrathin films of LaNiO3. The results give scientists another “knob” to turn to tune this important transition, which could be useful for making advanced electronic devices. Read more »
A Designed Material Untangles Long-Standing Puzzle
The origin of the metal-to-insulator transition in a key material system was revealed by nanostructures designed to decouple simultaneous phase transitions. This approach could lead to new materials with emergent physics and unique electronic properties, supporting broader research efforts to revolutionize modern electronics. Read more »
X-Ray Handedness Reveals Handedness of Electronic Vortices
Electronic vortex structures have been found to emerge from engineered samples of alternating complex-oxide layers. Resonant soft x-ray diffraction (RSXD) studies using circularly polarized x-rays revealed the vortices’ left- and right-handedness. The intriguing results open the door to electrically controllable chiral devices. Read more »
X-Rays Reveal ‘Handedness’ in Swirling Electric Vortices
Scientists used spiraling x-rays at the ALS to observe, for the first time, a property that gives handedness to swirling electric patterns—dubbed polar vortices—in a synthetically layered material. Read more »
Ferromagnetism Emerges to Alleviate Polar Mismatch
A polar mismatch between nonferromagnetic materials drives an electronic reconstruction in which interfacial ferromagnetism is induced. The emergence of such functionality at interfaces could enable new types of electronics for a range of applications, including logic, memory, sensing, and more. Read more »
A New Way to Tune Emergent Magnetism
Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA)—where magnetic moments in a thin film preferentially point out of the plane of the film—is an emergent phenomenon of both fundamental and technological interest. A combination of x-ray techniques demonstrate how to tune PMA in transition-metal oxide multilayers. Read more »
Fine-Tuning Oxygen Vacancies with Coherent Strain
Researchers have demonstrated a novel way to systematically strain-engineer oxygen vacancies in complex transition-metal oxide thin films. The work advances our ability to tailor such defects, small changes in which can lead to dramatic changes in material properties such as conductivity and magnetism. Read more »
