During their first year at OSU, Winchell had the opportunity to explore different research areas within physics, and Professor Oksana Ostroverkhova’s quantum mechanics class quickly rose to the top. Winchell took a research credit with Ostroverkhova and began working with graduate student Piper Aislinn on a 2D magnet project. They now work in Ostroverkhova’s lab.
2D magnetic materials are a specific class of magnets that form atomically thin layers that stack on top of each other and are held together weakly by what are known as van der Waals bonds. These magnetic materials have a broad range of potential uses, from communication to data storage. One area getting a lot of research interest is the potential for 2D magnetic materials to reach communication frequency ranges that traditional electronics can’t reach. For example, most 5G phones now use low gigahertz frequencies to transmit information.
“With magnetic materials, the resonant frequency can be a lot higher, so you can potentially get faster processing and communication speeds because the wave frequency is higher,” Winchell said. “With the material I’m looking at, the resonant frequency is in the 20 gigahertz to 40 gigahertz range, and some 2D magnets can even get into the terahertz and optical range.”
The resonant behavior of 2D magnets is a result of spin waves — oscillations in the microscopic magnetic moments that make up the material. Spin waves can transmit information through a circuit without moving electrons around, which could be a game changer for the semiconductor industry, among other applications.
“For data servers and storage, a lot of energy goes into cooling everything down, partly because as the electrons move, they generate heat, and that’s a huge source of inefficiency,” Winchell said. “If devices were able to use spin waves to transmit information instead, that could reduce some of these inefficiencies since spin waves are fundamentally less power-consuming.”
While the study of 2D magnetic materials is still in the foundational stages, it’s garnering huge interest because of its potential to change how we transmit data. Engineering professor Pallavi Dhagat is another OSU faculty member interested in the potential for 2D magnetic materials, and through Dhagat’s mentorship, Winchell found out about the IEEE Magnetics Society summer program in Cairo.
“I thought it was a great opportunity to leave the country, and it was fully funded,” Winchell said. “Pallavi told me this would be a great way to meet and learn from some of her colleagues and make connections with people at different universities around the world.”
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