The shift from the Industrial to the Information Era has greatly increased the variety of electronic components and the number of elements used in devices. This complexity aims to boost performance but often overlooks sustainability and supply resilience. As many critical metals are unevenly distributed globally, technologies relying on numerous materials face growing supply risks. Like “medieval spices,” even tiny amounts of certain metals are vital for key applications. While improving recycling and diversifying supply is essential, it’s not enough. Since 2011, the EU has tackled this issue by identifying 30 “critical raw materials,” including Ta, W, Pt, Sr, and Bi.
Microelectronics development has long prioritized performance over sustainability. However, alternatives to traditional semiconductor technology have emerged—most notably spintronics, which uses electron spin instead of charge to process information. Spintronics enabled magnetic read-heads, various sensors, and more recently, non-volatile memories now entering the market, including in Europe. A decade ago, the field shifted toward spin-orbitronics, which leverages materials with strong spin-orbit coupling to enhance device performance, enabling ultrafast, high-density memories. Yet, this promising technology depends heavily on scarce, critical raw materials such as Pt, Ir, Ta, and Bi.
We propose to change the game by developing an entirely new technology based on abundant metals (such as Cu or Al), reinforcing sustainable and resilient advanced microelectronics. This innovative technology is rooted in recently discovered (partly by the consortium) physical mechanisms that exploit the electron’s orbital angular momentum (OAM), rather than its spin. Orbitronics, as we name it, could lead to new families of electronic components, from memories to sensors and logic, and possibly THz emitters and rf nano-oscillators without the need for heavy metals. It has the potential not only to outperform existing devices but also to be strategically resilient and environmentally responsible. We propose a focused program to design and characterize new heterostructures with maximized current- and optically-driven OAM enabling entirely novel orbitronic devices made of abundant metals with low environmental footprint.
The four objectives of OBELIX are:
1. Demonstrate the successful implementation of orbital currents in original devices relevant to information technology, including an orbital torque memory outperforming SOT-MRAM, an electrically controlled orbital switch for programmable logic and a vortex-beam controlled THz emitter.
2. Reveal efficient orbital transport in light metal heterostructures by identifying promising materials for orbital-to-charge conversion using theoretical and numerical modeling, demonstrate long-range orbital transport and large interconversion rates, developing novel experimental techniques enabling the electrical and optical probe of orbital currents.
3. A systematic characterization of orbital transport parameters (orbital conductivity and relaxation length, orbital-charge conversion rate, orbital polarizability…) in a wide range of materials (light metals, oxide interfaces, 2D materials...) to establish optimal materials.
4. Contribute to the public awareness concerning critical materials in microelectronics
