On October 28, 2025, the President of the Czech Republic awarded the Medal of Merit to Professor Tomáš Jungwirth, head of the Spintronics and Nanoelectronics Department at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Professor Jungwirth and his team were behind a discovery that paves the way for digital data storage that is a thousand times faster.
Tomáš Jungwirth, together with colleagues from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University, has built one of the world's most important centers for spintronics research and opened up new and unique directions for research and development in this field. Professor Jungwirth is known worldwide for his ability to combine experimental and theoretical physics research with detailed knowledge of information technology.
In 2004, Tomáš Jungwirth and his colleagues predicted the spin Hall effect in a non-magnetic conductor, which is now key in the field of relativistic spintronics. Later, Prof. Jungwirth drew the attention of the wider professional public to research into spintronics based on antiferromagnets – thanks to his contributions, antiferromagnetic spintronics became part of the international roadmap for research and development of future information technologies. In 2018, he coordinated a special issue of Nature Physics, with 24 global academic and industrial organizations contributing articles summarizing the prospects for this new field.
Research into a previously unknown class of magnets that combine the advantages of ferromagnets and antiferromagnets led Prof. Jungwirth and his team to discover altermagnetism. Last year, Tomáš Jungwirth published a paper in Nature in which he and his colleagues from Switzerland and Austria experimentally confirmed the existence of altermagnetism. The discovery was met with an extraordinary response not only in the scientific community, with articles appearing in Science, Nature, Science News, and The Economist, among others.
During his career, Tomáš Jungwirth has published 260 papers in professional journals, 40 of which were in the Science/Nature family of journals. His work has been cited over 40,000 times.
As part of a national expert group, Tomáš Jungwirth helps prepare applications from young scientists from Czech research organizations for ERC grants. He also left a significant mark on science policy during his tenure on the Research, Development and Innovation Council (2011–2018), the Scientific Council of the Czech Science Foundation, and the Scientific Council of the European Research Council. He is a sought-after science popularizer who is regularly invited to public lectures and science programs on television and radio. His interviews and popular science articles have been published in a number of domestic and foreign media outlets.
Congratulations to Professor Tomáš Jungwirth on receiving such a prestigious award!
