Past event

Inaugural Lecture -- Peter Wahl Delving into the Foundations of Future Technologies, One Atom at a Time

The success of today's technology is a result of in-depth materials research. It involves manipulating materials at incredibly tiny scales, just a few billionths of a meter, and controlling how they conduct electricity. This miniaturization has allowed us to create powerful integrated circuits with billions of transistors, which, in turn, drive numerous applications, from simulating the world around us to building artificial intelligence. However, the ever-increasing demands on technology are starting to pose challenges. Not only are we running into limits on how small we can make things, but the amount of energy our technology consumes is also becoming a problem, both in terms of technical constraints and environmental impact.

To tackle these issues, we can look to materials with special properties related to how electrons behave. Our current technology primarily uses the charge of electrons to convey information, but electrons also have a property called spin. Investigating this spin property could potentially allow us to transmit information without generating excess heat and even use it for quantum computing. However, to harness the full potential of these materials and address the current technology's challenges, we need to delve into the microscopic details.

In my research group, we have developed tools that enable us to observe, at the atomic level, what electrons are up to within solid materials. These tools are used in one of the quietest environments in the UK, housed in a specially designed ultra-low vibration facility at the Centre for Designer Quantum Materials at the University of St Andrews. In my presentation, I will give you an overview of the incredible insights we can gain from these atomic-scale images, shedding light on the properties of materials that continue to defy our current understanding.