Designing and Controlling Order in Magnetic Systems

A central challenge in the field of magnetism is to understand, design and control magnetic
order across a wide range of length and time scales. Magnetic order arises from the interplay of exchange interactions, dipolar coupling, magnetic anisotropy, external magnetic fields and spin-orbit coupling, and is strongly influenced by crystal symmetry, strain, and defects. It is instrumental to understand how these contributions determine magnetic ground states, excitations, and metastable configurations in real materials. Addressing this requires combining theoretical modelling with materials synthesis, nanofabrication, and characterization techniques spanning length scales down to nanometers and time scales down to femtoseconds.

Recent advances in materials design have enabled the deliberate control of magnetic order through the active shaping of magnetic energy landscapes by tuning anisotropy, strain, symmetry, and defect configurations. Defects play a dual role: beyond acting as perturbations, they can be engineered to locally modify magnetic interactions, enabling control down to the smallest length scales and extending functional possibilities in spintronic devices. Crystal order and symmetry have also emerged as key parameters for stabilizing and manipulating magnetic states, such as spin textures, skyrmions, spin waves, and chiral phonons, as well as the regulation of spin transport and spin currents. Theory is central to this effort, identifying relevant control parameters, predicting emergent behavior, and guiding experiments, particularly in out-of-equilibrium regimes and on ultrafast timescales.

This seminar on designing and controlling order in magnetic systems will bring together leading international experts and early-career researchers to present and discuss recent advances. It is organized around three themes: (i) Understanding and designing unconventional magnetic order on the atomic scale, (ii) Controlling collective spin ensembles and excitations, and (iii) Inducing non-equilibrium and metastable states on the ultrafast timescale. Participation is encouraged from all areas of magnetism, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the topic. Contributions will be presented through invited and contributed talks as well as poster sessions, promoting focused discussion and scientific exchange.

The conference language will be English. The Wilhelm and Else Heraeus-Foundation bears the cost of full-board accommodation for all participants.