HomeElucidation of the mechanism of how chirality, or morphological asymmetry like the right and left hands, manifests itself as material functions, through the combined approaches of chemistry and physics, for innovation in materials sciences.
Goals
Through the integration of chemistry and physics, we aim to lead innovation in materials science, create a new field of science, and contribute toward a sustainable society by accomplishing the following objectives:
- Elucidate the mechanism for chirality expression as material functions using theoretical and experimental methods.
- Generalize the concept of quantum mechanical "spin phase", which associates "material" with "information", and establish a method to control spin phases.
Background
Our position in the world of science
- Recently, studies of materials such as multiferroics and topological materials, like chiral magnets, characterized by specific asymmetries have been globally popular. Moreover, attempts to understand chiral materials involve several of the primary problems being investigated in materials science.
- The concept of "chirality" can be considered a universal one: exhibited by molecules, elementary particles, spin arrangements, polarization arrangements in liquid crystals, galaxy structures, and so on. Elucidating "chirality" may lead us to a uniform understanding of these phenomena.
Our achievements
- We have successfully compounded about 90% of the chiral molecule-based magnets and nearly half of the chiral inorganic magnets reported in literature.
- We have reported a variety of peculiar physical properties of these chiral magnets. They are drawing immense attention as new materials in the field of spintronics.
Plans
Outcomes
We will introduce materials with controllable spin phases and these control techniques to the industry and create a new concept and field based on "chirality".
