Investigation of the electronic and structural properties of thin-film systems and nanostructures at Cornell’s Center for Nanoscale Systems aims to develop electronic and magnetic devices that could lead to huge increases in data storage and processing speed.

The center, headed by Applied and Engineering Physics Professor Robert Buhrman, has developed advanced nanofabrication techniques to produce metallic nanostructures with minimum dimensions of three nanometers.

Investigation is under way of spin-dependent transport properties of the interface between ferromagnets and normal metals—the underlying cause of the giant magnetoresistance effect that affects advanced magnetic information storage technologies. Buhrman’s group is also looking into the phenomenon of “spin-transfer,” whereby an intense spin-polarized current can be employed to excite and even switch the orientation of a thin-film nanomagnet onto which it impinges. This research may provide a new and powerful way of writing magnetic information on the nanoscale.

The success or failure of many modern devices ranging from high-performance turbine blades to integrated circuits depends on a single layer of atoms or impurities at an interface whose properties cannot be extrapolated from their everyday bulk phases. Instead the quantum nature of the interface must be treated explictly—providing a striking intersection of science and technology at the atomic scale. Professor David Muller’s group in Applied and Engineering Physics has pioneered atomicresolution electron microscopy and spectroscopy methods capable of unraveling these bonding details and are working to identify and predict how electronic structure at the atomic scale controls the macroscopic properties of materials and sets fundamental limits on how small devices such as transistors can be made.