Giacomo Sala obtains a SNSF Ambizione fellowship
Dr. Giacomo Sala, in the group of Andrea Caviglia, has received a highly competitive SNSF Ambizione fellowship. Ambizione grants are aimed at early career researchers who wish to conduct, manage and lead an independent project at a Swiss higher education institution.
The aim of his project is to investigate the generation and transport of orbital angular momentum in 2D electron gases at the interface between insulating transition-metal oxides.
In equilibrium conditions, the orbital angular momentum of electrons in solids is suppressed. For this reason, it has been considered for a long time as a quantity that cannot be easily manipulated. Recent experimental and theoretical works have questioned this interpretation by showing that the orbital angular momentum can in fact be generated and transported. This change of perspective has given birth to the emerging and exciting field of orbitronics. The funded Ambizione project aims at understanding 1) how the orbital angular momentum can be efficiently generated and transported in 2D electron gases hosted at transition-metal oxides interfaces, and 2) how the entanglement of the orbital properties of electrons with the quantum geometry of electronic bands shapes the electronic response to electric and magnetic fields.
