Dr Shuqiu Wang, Senior Lecturer in Physics at the University of Bristol, is one of two Bristol researchers to receive an ERC Starting Grant in this year’s round, which drew a record 4,807 applications from across Europe, of which only 8.8% were funded.
Her €2.15 million project, DualSpin, will investigate altermagnetism, a newly identified form of magnetism that produces no external magnetic field, using quantum microscopes that image individual atoms at temperatures close to absolute zero. The team will search for a new type of topological superconductivity predicted to emerge where altermagnets meet superconductors, a largely unexplored area of experimental research and a possible route to the materials underpinning future quantum technologies.
The award follows the commissioning of the group's first quantum microscope earlier this year.