Mesoscopic Systems

Research Profile

The Laboratory for Mesoscopic Systems based at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is a joint laboratory between the ETH Zurich and PSI.Our research is directed towards novel magnetic thin film and nanoscale systems, which we investigate with the large scale facilities at PSI. Nanoscale magnetic elements are of technolog-ical importance for a variety of industrial applications including magnetic recording heads and media, magnetic random access memory (MRAM), magnetic logic and data transfer, as well as miniaturized sensor and actuator elements for microfluidics, biomedical and space applications.Using synchrotron X-ray microscopy techniques, it is possible to perform detailed element specific observations of magnetic domains, both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic, as well as strain domains in ferroelectric materials. We also use X-ray and neutron scattering, and low energy muons to characterise large assemblies of nanoscale magnets, and have developed X-ray tomography for the characterisation of structure, chemistry and magnetism in 3D. We perform this characterisation at different timescales from seconds down to picoseconds. We currently focus on:

• Hybrid systems with two or more functional layers
• Metamaterials manufactured from arrays of coupled nanoscale elements
• 3D systems