Awardees of the “CRC-Spin Award 2023”
The Core Research Cluster for Spintronics at Tohoku University (“CRC-Spin”) and the Center for Science and Innovation inSpintronics (CSIS) have launched the Core Research Cluster for Spintronics Award (CRC-Spin Award) since 2023 to honor early
career researchers who have produced outstanding academic achievements and/or industrial applications in Spintronics in abroad definition of the field. The ceremony and memorial lecture will be given in the 7th Symp. for the Core Research Clusters forMaterials Science and Spintronics and the 6th Symp. on Int’l Joint Graduate Program in Materials Science and Spintronics.

Dr. Shun Kanai

Dr. Ping Tang

(Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku Univ)(Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku Univ)

Investigation of probabilistic and quantum
spin dynamics for unconventional electronics

Spintronic analog of ferroelectric materials

There is an increasing interest in developing computing
hardware capable of addressing hard problems that theconventional deterministic computers cannot readily execute.
This demand poses a challenge to explore the functionalities ofsolid-state systems which have not been utilized effectively intoday’s electronics.
Dr. Shun Kanai studied probabilistic collective spin dynamics andquantum single spin dynamics to realize such unconventional
computing hardware from both theoretical and experimental
approaches. The specific achievements include:• Establishment of theoretical basis to describe the thermal
fluctuation of magnetization direction by introducing therelative entropy and experimental demonstration ofnanosecond random telegraph noise, 10 million times fasterthan the previous reports [1,2]• Discovery of generalized scaling law of the spin coherencetime allowing effective exploration of quantum materials andprediction of 700 materials promising for quantum
applications [3]Magnets and ferroelectrics are “ferroic” materials that below a
critical temperature exhibit spontaneous order of magnetic andelectric dipoles, respectively. They are both technologicallyimportant and similar in many respects, such as non-volatilememory devices, sensors, actuators, etc. Based on magnetic
materials, the field of spintronics has developed a lot over thepast several decades, mostly focusing on the coupling of spin,heat, and charge currents.
Dr. Ping Tang’s research generalized the concept and scheme ofspintronics to ferroelectric materials, in which the electric dipolesof atoms take the place of their spins (or magnetic dipoles). The
specific achievements include:• Prediction of "ferron" excitations and the associated transportof electric polarization in ferroelectrics [1,2]• Prediction of nonlocal ferron-drag thermoelectricity generated
by ferroelectric van der Waals heterostructures [3]• Prediction of sliding phase transition in ferroelectric van derWaals Bilayers [4][1] S. Kanai et al., Phys. Rev. B 103, 094423 (2021).
[2] K. Hayakawa, S. Kanai et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 117202 (2021).
[3] S. Kanai et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 119, e2121808119 (2022).

[1] P. Tang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 047601 (2022).
[2] P. Tang et al., Phys. Rev. B 106, L081105 (2022).
[3] P. Tang et al., Phys. Rev. B 107, L121406 (2023).
[4] P. Tang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 176801 (2023).

Congratulations!