Saeed S. I. Almishal holds a wafer coated with a film just 20 nanometers thick—less than 1/5,000 the width of a human hair—capable of changing how electronics store and process data. At Penn State, Almishal and his team have created a new ceramic material that uses magnetic signals instead of electric current, a breakthrough that could lead to faster, more energy-efficient devices. This innovation matters because today’s electronics rely heavily on electrical current, which generates heat and consumes power, limiting speed and battery life. As demand for computing grows, especially in data centers, finding alternatives is urgent.
The new material is a high-entropy oxide (HEO), a class of ceramics that can combine multiple elements in a single crystal structure. What makes this film special is its "anomalous crystallinity"—a controlled chemical disorder within an otherwise perfectly ordered lattice. This disorder, engineered at the atomic level, allows magnetic signals called magnons to move with minimal energy. The film was built by stacking two layers grown at different temperatures—500°C and 300°C—creating an interface where magnetic behavior emerges. For over a decade, the team, including Jon-Paul Maria, refined the fabrication process in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, treating the material like a precise paint applied atom by atom.
The magnetic signals in this film require far less energy than traditional electrical currents to transmit and store data. This could drastically cut power use in electronics, especially in large data centers, which consume about 1% of global electricity. By blending magnonics—the science of magnetic waves—with spintronics, which uses electron spin for data, the team is opening a new path in computing. Almishal’s group has already published early results in Advanced Science (2025), and their latest study appears in Advanced Materials (2026). Now, they’re building the Quantum and Magnetic Materials Measurements Lab, the first magnetics lab in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, equipped to test these materials under extreme temperatures.
Undergraduate and graduate students are already involved, gaining hands-on experience in quantum materials. The team plans to work with industry partners to integrate the film into consumer electronics. While still in development, the material offers a glimpse of devices that are faster, cooler, and more efficient. As computing demands soar, innovations like this could help meet them without a corresponding rise in energy use.
This isn’t just a lab curiosity—it’s a step toward a new generation of electronics built on magnetism, not just electricity.