CRONOS

Time dynamics and ContROl in naNOStructures for magnetic recording and energy applications

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The CRONOS project seeks to develop a quantitative, flexible and fully atomistic theory of ultrafast dynamics in real materials. Our effort will create the necessary knowledge for advancing two technological areas crucial for the economic future of Europe and the well being of its citizens: new materials for solar energy harvesting and ultra-high density magnetic data storage. In particular we will construct the necessary theoretical tools for addressing the problems of energy photo-conversion and laser-induced ultrafast magnetization dynamics. Crucially CRONOS will not just look at how an optical excitation perturbs a materials system but also at how such an excitation can be engineered to produce a desired response. Hence both the direct and the inverse problem will be tackled. CRONOS’ theoretical program will be validated by a broad experimental activity on ultra-fast pump-probe spectroscopy and by the presence in the consortium of European companies. Equally important is the fact that the consortium will produce a substantial amount of high-end scientific software, which will then be distributed freely to the academic community. The project will develop a quantitative and materials-specific theory for electron dynamics in nano-structures, which, at the same time, is fully atomistic, efficient, scalable to large systems, and rigorously theoretically formulated. The core of our method is time-dependent density functional theory, TDDFT, which was invented by a member of our consortium and has been developed over the years . Our workplan comprises formal methodological development, algorithm implementation, applications to both solar cells and magnetic recording, and experimental validation. A significant deliverable of this project will also be the wide distribution of computational packages'

Introduzione (Teaser)

By studying and controlling time dynamics in nanostructures, researchers plan to advance two technologies important for Europe's economy: solar energy harvesting and magnetic data storage.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Europe needs to have a variety of sustainable sources of energy, and sunlight is of great interest. The continent also needs vastly improved magnetic storage to cope with the growing flood of data.

Although one might not expect a single research project to address both concerns, advancing the theory of ultrafast dynamics in real materials does so. The EU-funded project 'Time dynamics and control in nanostructures for magnetic recording and energy applications' (http://www.cronostheory.eu (CRONOS)) is developing a quantitative, flexible and fully atomistic theory of ultrafast dynamics.

The use of time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) is a key approach to the investigations. A wide-ranging plan of work includes formal methodological development, algorithm implementation, application to magnetic data storage and solar cell, and experimental validation. The work is highly interdisciplinary, so the varied skills of the consortium members are essential.

The researchers studied the perturbation of a materials system to an optical excitation, and the ways in which this excitation could be designed to produce a desired response.

With the project due to finish in May 2015, a substantial amount of the programme has been completed. The team has freely distributed the high-level scientific software resulting from its work to other academics. It delivered several tools to deal with both modelling data storage and solar energy, and these are expected to be useful for many other EU projects.

The consortium has promoted the project using the usual range of outlets, from many learned papers to conference participation to articles in the popular press.