Electronics of the Future: Why Superconductors and Spintronics Work Together

Albert Hall Museum

Photo courtesy of Nataliya Pugach

It was once believed that superconductivity and magnetism avoided each other like the devil avoids holy water. However, modern nanostructures prove the opposite. A Russian theoretical physicist and Indian experimentalists have joined forces to create the electronics of the future—free from energy losses. Nataliya Pugach, Professor at the School of Electronic Engineering at HSE MIEM and Leading Research Fellow at the Quantum Nanoelectronics Laboratory, explains how a long-standing acquaintance in Cambridge grew into a mirror laboratory project with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), how superconducting spintronics works, and what surprises a researcher in India beyond the university campus.

Nataliya Pugach

— Your research visit to the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) will contribute to the creation of a fully-fledged mirror laboratory in superconducting spintronics. Research visits often end with nothing more than a publication—or even less. What made it possible to turn your visit into such a large-scale joint project? Was it a chance idea mentioned informally, or the result of a long-established dialogue?

— We very much hope for a long-term partnership. Our work was included in a memorandum of understanding on developing cooperation with IIT Bombay, signed by HSE University Rector Nikita Anisimov, during his visit to India. I was also part of the delegation. The rectors of both universities have planned the establishment of a full-fledged joint mirror laboratory in superconducting spintronics.

A joint paper on this topic has already been submitted, and another has been prepared for publication. In addition, a Russian–Indian workshop is planned. Our Indian partner has been invited to a partnership week, and I have been invited to serve as an opponent for a PhD dissertation in India. Two further avenues have also emerged for expanding cooperation with Russian experimentalists.

My Indian colleague and I met a long time ago—more than ten years ago—in Cambridge, where he was a postdoctoral researcher and I had been invited to give a seminar. After the talk, we discussed experimental results with local PhD students and postdocs. Our partner’s result was genuinely very interesting and, incidentally, remains unexplained to this day. So our work in the same field is by no means accidental, and we have been engaged in closely related research for quite some time.

A couple of years ago, I unexpectedly received an email from a young professor in India proposing collaboration. I must say, I was delighted. However, communication through occasional online meetings with him and his PhD students proved rather difficult—professors are busy people. The real breakthrough came with my research visit under an HSE University programme. We would sit late into the night with the PhD students, discussing new ideas and experimental results. It seems that, as a theorist, I managed to explain some of them. In a sense, we found each other scientifically: we share a common research interest—hybrid structures for superconducting spintronics. In this area, my research group has a substantial theoretical foundation, while our partners have unique equipment and technology. It is no coincidence that IIT Bombay ranks second (and sometimes first) among Indian universities in international rankings.

— Superconducting spintronics lies at the intersection of two highly complex disciplines. Is it possible to explain to an informed layperson what researchers in this field actually do and what problems they address?

— In the early stages of research, it was established that superconductivity and magnetism are mutually exclusive phenomena, which, as the saying goes, avoid each other like the devil avoids holy water. This notion dominated twentieth-century physics for many decades. However, advances in nanotechnology over the past 10–15 years have overturned this view. It turns out that artificial composite nanostructures combining superconductors and magnets exhibit an entire class of phenomena with no counterparts in bulk materials.

We conduct fundamental research into inherently quantum physical phenomena at the interface of superconductivity and magnetism, while also striving to ensure that the effects we discover can serve as the basis for new devices in this promising area of electronics. In spintronics, information is transmitted not by electric charge but by another property of the electron called ‘spin.’ This is related to the magnetic moment: each electron behaves like a tiny compass needle, and these needles can point in different directions, thereby encoding information. Superconductors, meanwhile, provide macroscopic quantum coherence—that is, an electric current without unnecessary heating of the conductor. This enables information to be transmitted over distances relevant to electronic devices without energy loss. Incidentally, the Nobel Prize last year was awarded for the discovery of macroscopic quantum phenomena in superconducting devices.

Photo courtesy of Nataliya Pugach

— This article on the HSE website emphasises that such developments are needed to save data centres from an energy collapse. How close is this practical problem to your fundamental research? Is there already a bridge between superconductivity physics and concrete engineering solutions for servers, or is it still too early to say?

— Both the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries can rightly be called the age of what we commonly refer to as electricity. This is a multifaceted phenomenon, one manifestation of which is the flow of electric current, allowing energy (and thus information) to be transmitted through wires. However, as any school pupil knows, electric current causes the conductor to heat up. In devices such as electric kettles or immersion heaters, this property is useful, even central; in the vast majority of other applications, however, it is undesirable because it leads to energy losses. For example, in modern microelectronics—or rather, nanoelectronics—local heating has become one of the most serious obstacles to further miniaturisation. In 1911, the phenomenon of superconductivity was discovered: in certain materials at low temperatures, electric current flows without any losses—in formal terms, the resistance of a superconducting wire is zero. Superconductivity is a unique quantum phenomenon, and research related to it has already been awarded seven Nobel Prizes, most recently in 2025.

Spintronic devices have been used in modern computers since the 1990s for recording and reading information. Today, it is a vast field involving a wide variety of magnetic materials. Controlling the flow of spins—the very same ‘magnetic needles’—can in some cases be more energy-efficient. Superconductivity, in turn, enables the flow of electrons without any energy loss at all. At the intersection of these two disciplines, fundamentally new devices are being created, unlike the elements of conventional semiconductor electronics, which still largely rely on concepts from classical (pre-quantum) physics. This is precisely why semiconductor electronics has reached a natural limit in its rapid, almost exponential development. This is why superconducting spintronics can be seen as the electronics of the future.

— It is interesting that the coordination of this project is being handled through HSE’s St Petersburg campus. How is this scientific logistics organised?

— Historically, the HSE Campus in St Petersburg has long-standing ties with Indian institutions. They organised the visit of HSE Rector Nikita Anisimov to India and included me in the delegation. When the collaboration began to take shape, colleagues from St Petersburg offered their organisational support, which we gratefully accepted and hope to continue relying on in the future.

— Beyond science, could you share your personal impressions of immersing yourself in Indian culture?

— In India, almost everything is striking. Every step outside is a small—and sometimes quite large—adventure. It is, of course, a country with an ancient and extraordinarily rich culture and philosophy, a land of contrasts. What is particularly impressive is its pluralism: the coexistence of diverse peoples, languages, religions, and social groups—often in remarkably close proximity—and the understanding that if someone nearby is completely different from you, that too is perfectly normal. In this regard, the activities of the HSE Centre for Sociocultural and Ethnolinguistic Studies are especially thought-provoking. I do not claim any professional expertise in cultural or political studies, but it seems to me that India is precisely the country which, for a number of historical reasons, comes closest to grasping the idea of a multipolar world.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank my colleagues from the Office for Academic Development for providing this research placement and opening up new prospects. The support of Dmitry Kovalenko, Director of HSE MIEM and HSE Vice Rector, has been invaluable. I am also very grateful for the prompt assistance of Sofia Sadykova, as well as for the contribution of colleagues from St Petersburg under the leadership of Director Anna Tyshetskaya, which I have already mentioned.