The 2017 Magnetism Roadmap

Abstract

Building upon the success and relevance of the 2014 Magnetism Roadmap, this 2017 Magnetism Roadmap edition follows a similar general layout, even if its focus is naturally shifted, and a different group of experts and, thus, viewpoints are being collected and presented. More importantly, key developments have changed the research landscape in very relevant ways, so that a novel view onto some of the most crucial developments is warranted, and thus, this 2017 Magnetism Roadmap article is a timely endeavour. The change in landscape is hereby not exclusively scientific, but also reflects the magnetism related industrial application portfolio. Specifically, Hard Disk Drive technology, which still dominates digital storage and will continue to do so for many years, if not decades, has now limited its footprint in the scientific Topical ReviewOriginal content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. and research community, whereas significantly growing interest in magnetism and magnetic materials in relation to energy applications is noticeable, and other technological fields are emerging as well. Also, more and more work is occurring in which complex topologies of magnetically ordered states are being explored, hereby aiming at a technological utilization of the very theoretical concepts that were recognised by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics.Given this somewhat shifted scenario, it seemed appropriate to select topics for this Roadmap article that represent the three core pillars of magnetism, namely magnetic materials, magnetic phenomena and associated characterization techniques, as well as applications of magnetism. While many of the contributions in this Roadmap have clearly overlapping relevance in all three fields, their relative focus is mostly associated to one of the three pillars. In this way, the interconnecting roles of having suitable magnetic materials, understanding (and being able to characterize) the underlying physics of their behaviour and utilizing them for applications and devices is well illustrated, thus giving an accurate snapshot of the world of magnetism in 2017.The article consists of 14 sections, each written by an expert in the field and addressing a specific subject on two pages. Evidently, the depth at which each contribution can describe the subject matter is limited and a full review of their statuses, advances, challenges and perspectives cannot be fully accomplished. Also, magnetism, as a vibrant research field, is too diverse, so that a number of areas will not be adequately represented here, leaving space for further Roadmap editions in the future. However, this 2017 Magnetism Roadmap article can provide a frame that will enable the reader to judge where each subject and magnetism research field stands overall today and which directions it might take in the foreseeable future.The first mater...

Modulation of Magnetic Properties at the Nanometer Scale in Continuously Graded Ferromagnets

“…In recent years, graded magnetic materials exhibiting spatially dependent magnetic properties have developed into a very relevant research area as top-down nanoscale materials fabrication techniques have become increasingly available [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Hereby, it is interesting to realize that fabrication of materials with spatially modulated magnetic properties for application purposes is actually not a very novel concept, but rather a well-known and well-utilized approach.…”

Symmetry and Topology in Antiferromagnetic Spintronics

“…Antiferromagnetic spintronics has been recently established as a new branch of magnetism [139,4,92,140]. In parallel, last few years have seen progress in coupling magnetism with topological states of matter, giving rise to a new spin-off: topological spintronics [141].…”

Stripe domains reorientation in ferromagnetic films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

“…The subject is currently attracting wide interest, thanks to the central role played today by magnetic thin films with PMA in many applications, from memories to logic devices and sensors [52]. Current active research on PMA films and multilayers is focused onto the definition of magnetic phase diagrams into different systems where magnetic stripe and skyrmion or bubble phases compete [30,47,50,[53][54][55][56][57].…”