prof. Tomáš Jungwirth, Ph.D.

Czech physicist Tomáš Jungwirth is one of the most important figures in contemporary world science thanks to his groundbreaking research in the field of spintronics. In 2024, he gained awards on several prestigious platforms, confirming his key contribution to scientific knowledge.

The family of magnetic materials has been traditionally divided into the ferromagnetic branch known for several millennia and the antiferromagnetic branch known for nearly a century. Researchers from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences have recently made a discovery of a new branch of the magnetic family, termed altermagnetic. 

The Česká hlava (Czech Head) National Government Award has been presented by the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation to Tomáš Jungwirth from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He received the most prestigious scientific award for his contribution to spintronics research. The ceremony of the 23rd edition of the competition brought recognition also to David Vojna, who received the Doctorandus Award for Technical Sciences.

Theoretical interpretation often steps into the spotlight first once breakthrough experiments have been finished. A much more exciting situation, especially in the realm of spectral properties of magnetic materials, is when a theoretical prediction persuades researchers to undertake a specific measurement approach, and subsequently, the collected data align precisely with the prediction. Research that resulted in a paper published last week in Physical Review Letters, where an international team reported that the way light is absorbed by a magnetic substance varies according to its state of polarization, followed just this less common line of development.

The research in TERAFIT project will focus on the development of applications that are essential for the Internet of Things and the Big Data economy. The aim is to achieve breakthroughs towards a new generation of information technologies – the three research objectives of the project focus on interconnected breakthroughs that will lead to substantial savings on energy, space and time scales.

In an article published in Nature an international team of scientists breaks down the traditional idea of dividing magnetism into two branches – the ferromagnetic one, known for several millennia, and the antiferromagnetic, discovered about a century ago. Researchers have now succeeded in directly experimentally demonstrating a third altermagnetic branch theoretically predicted by researchers in Prague and Mainz several years ago.

Libor Šmejkal from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences has won the second place in the “Best Dissertation Thesis” category in this year’s Werner von Siemens Award. Libor won the award for the thesis entitled “Topology band theory of relativistic spintronics in antiferromagnets” supervised by professor Tomáš Jungwirth.

The eleventh Science Café in Brussels hosted Tomáš Jungwirth, a recognized scientist in the field of Spintronics from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences.