Duran Farell Prize awarded to Prof. Jordi Sort’s group

The research group led by Prof. Jordi Sort, BeMAGIC Coordinator (UAB), has been recently awarded the 12th Duran Farell Prize in Technological Research. The Duran Farell Prize is awarded every two years by the Social Council of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) with the collaboration of the gas company Gas Natural Fenosa. The research project awarded, entitled: “Voltage-Control of magnetism in nanoscale-engineered materials: a new concept for energy-efficient data storage”, seeks to solve one of the most important challenges faced by modern society: the energy needed for large scale data storage. The project consists in using voltage instead of intensity in order to record information on electronic storage devices, so as drastically to reduce thermal dissipation caused by the Joule effect. New materials with optimised microstructures at nanoscale level were developed, new protocols on how to act on these materials through voltage and a new design for the devices were created. In addition to a drastic reduction in energy loss in these processes, the application of voltage when registering information in the devices' memory also makes them safer and more robust.