16/05/2019 Humboldt-Club

Dear Humboldtians -- alumni of the Humboldt Foundation as well as actual fellows,

As you probably know, the Humboldt Club Germany ( https://www.dgh-ev.org/ ) is an association of Humboldtians in Germany, which consists mostly of alumni of the Humboldt Foundation but of course is also open for current Humboldt fellows. It is a platform for personal and scientific exchange and also addresses itself to the task of integrating newly arrived fellows into the network of Humboldtians in the region. The Rhein-Main branch of the club recently formed. It is our intention to organize meetings and other activies for all Humboldtians in the region.

Our program starts with a first meeting at the Institute for Nuclear Physics / Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz. Therefore, on behalf of the Regionalgruppe Rhein-Main of the Deutsche Gesellschaft der Humboldtianer, we cordially invite you to our Humboldt Salon, on May 16, 2019, which includes a lecture followed by a get-together.

The lecture will be given by Prof. Dr. Jairo Sinova (Institute of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University) on

"From Magnetic Cats to Artificial Intelligence: the Circular Technological Revolution of Spintronics"

We live in a multi-connected world of information technology. For better or worse, our destiny is linked to the technology which we depend upon. It has changed the way we interact, live, and influence our planet. Information technology uses the electrons of atoms for both computating, by using their charge, and in storing of information, by using the spin of electrons in magnetic materials. In the mid-2000s we saw an analog to digital revolution facilitated by the high-density information hard drives that gave rise to the Cloud. Today the new direction of storage technology focuses on doing away with hard drive technology and going towards an all electrical version in which charge-current and spin-currents are combined to flip magnets and create efficient Magnetic-Random-Access-Memories (MRAMs). To do so we have created magnetic materials that can flip themselves by running currents through them, similar to cat flipping itself. However, the revolution is just beginning. Ferromagnets, what is used today, have unfortunately a speed limit of GHz, which prevents them from connecting efficiently to the much faster THz optical communication network and the Internet of Things (IoT). These is where Antiferromagnets, which are faster but notoriously difficult to manipulate, come into play. In 2015 we created “antiferromagnetic cats” as well, which can now do similar things to ferromagnets but much faster and with properties that can be used for Artificial Intelligence Neural Networks. This has given rise to a revolution that has revolved in itself. Having gone from analog to digital in the late 2000s, we are coming back to analog, to search for efficient materials that can compute with the power and efficiency of the brain but at much higher speeds.

Jairo Sinova is one of the most eminent theoretical physicists of the younger generation in semi-conductor spintronics. Whilst still a postdoc in 2003, he became famous overnight when he proposed the notion of the intrinsic Spin Hall Effect. Since then, he has continued his theoretical work in cooperation with many experimental colleagues. In January 2014 he took up his position as a Humboldt Professor and became Head of the Spintronics and Nanoelectronics Theory Group at the Institut of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University. Since then he has driven the field of Spintronics/Spin Related Phenomena to the international forefront; he has also take centre stage in establishing the new Humboldt Interdisciplinary Center Spin Phenomena (SPICE). After completing his doctorate at Indiana University in 1999, he worked as a postdoc at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas at Austin before relocating to Texas A&M University (TAMU) in College Station, USA in 2003, where he was a professor of Physics. He also worked as an independent researcher for the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.He is a member of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. Jairo Sinova has received numerous honours including the National Science Foundation’s Career Award and the Cottrell Scholar Award of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA).

Venue:            Institute of Nuclear Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

                        (Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 45, 55128 Mainz)

Date:               Thursday, May 16, 2019, 18:30

Snacks and beverages will be available, kindly sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In order to facilitate preparations, we ask you to confirm participation and indicate the number of persons attending the Salon, by Tuesday, May 14, 2019, to kruhl[at]tum.de. Of course, partners are welcome!

With kind regards,

Jörn H. Kruhl, Concettina Sfienti, Thomas Mittmann

(Humboldt Club Rhein-Main)

11/10/2018 Neue Regionalgruppe Rhein-Main an der Universität Mainz gegründet

Am 11. Okotober 2018  hat sich im Raum Atrium der Alten Mensa an der Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz eine neue Regionalgruppe für den Raum Rhein-Main gegründet. Nach Grußworten von Dr. Lutz Cleemann dem 1. Vorsitzenden der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Humboldtianer e.V., Prof. Dr. Georg Krausch dem Präsidenten der Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz sowie von Frau Mira Albus als Vertreterin der Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung hörten die Anwesenden Gründungsmitglieder und Gäste den Vortrag "Ist die Zukunft schwarz?" des Festredners Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen vom Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung in Mainz.  Bei einem anschließenden Get-together hatten die einzelnen Mitglieder der Regionalgruppe Zeit zum gegenseitigen Austausch. Auf der Gründungsveranstaltung wurde Prof. Dr. Jörn H. Kruhl einstimmig zum Regionalgruppensprecher und Prof. Dr. Concettina Sfienti zu seiner Stellvertreterin und Prof. Dr. Thomas Mittmann zu seinen Stellvertreter gewählt.