Fukami-Kanai Laboratory
Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University

The 3rd Workshop on the Chicago-Tohoku Quantum Alliance was held on June 29–30, 2026, at Global Connect Hub — Atelier Q∞, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University. The workshop was co-organized by the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, WPI-AIMR, Tohoku University, and the University of Chicago.

This workshop was part of the activities of the Chicago-Tohoku Quantum Alliance, which was launched in 2023 to promote collaboration in quantum science and engineering between Tohoku University and the University of Chicago. Following the 1st workshop held in Sendai in October 2023 and the 2nd workshop held in Chicago in May 2025, this was the 3rd workshop in the series.

A total of 78 participants from Tohoku University, the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and related institutions attended the workshop.

The program included presentations by PIs and early-career researchers on ongoing and future collaborative research, short presentations and poster presentations by students, an introduction to outreach activities, and a panel discussion. Based on these presentations and discussions, the participants also held an open discussion on future directions for collaboration.

In addition, the participants joined a lab tour of the newly opened Global Connect Hub at the Research Institute of Electrical Communication.

Mr. Yuki Fushimi (M1) is awarded the Best Poster Award at the Swedish Magnetism Meet 2026 (SMM-2026) organized by the IEEE Magnetics Society Sweden Chapter, for his poster presentation entitled “Switching probability in Mn3Sn driven by chiral spin rotation using sub-ns pulses”.
The award was presented to the top 3 out of 24 poster presentations at the conference. Congratulations!

Organized by Profs. Johan Åkerman, Akash Kumar and Shunsuke Fukami, the Gothenburg-Tohoku Joint Spintronics Workshop (GT-JSW) was held at the Vann Spa Hotell Konferens in Sweden.

Research presentations and exchange events were held with over 30 participants from Tohoku University, University of Gothenburg, and other research institutes. From our group, Prof. Fukami, Assist. Prof. Dohi, Assist. Prof. Sud, Mr. Kinoshita (D1), Mr. Tasaki (D1), Mr. Iida (M2), Ms. Ikegami (M1), Mr. Fushimi (M1), and Ms. Yoshida (M1) participated in the workshop and gave presentations.

Our paper “130-nm CMOS-integrated superparamagnetic tunnel junction-based p-bit” by J.-Y. Yoon, N. Caçoilo, A. Madhavan, J. J. McClelland, S. Kanai, H. Ohno, S. Fukami, and W. A. Borders was published in the Early Access area of IEEE Electron Device Letters.

Press release: Spintronics P-Computer Ready for Scale-up

Our paper “Spin-transfer torque efficiency in ferro- and antiferromagnetically coupled synthetic free layers studied with superparamagnetic magnetic tunnel junctions” by T. Kinoshita, M. Ohtani, N. Cacoilo, H. Kaneko, S. Kanai, H. Ohno, and S. Fukami was published in Appl. Phys. Letters.

Our paper “Stochastic switching time constant and instability in nanomagnets” by S. Kanai, K. Hayakawa, M. Elyasi, K. Kobayashi, J. Igarashi, B. Jinnai, W. A. Borders, G. E. W. Bauer, H. Ohno, and S. Fukami was published in Communications Materials.

Press release: First Actual Measurement of “Attempt Time” in Nanomagnets After 70 Years of Assumptions

Our members, Prof. Shunsuke Fukami, Assoc. Prof. Yuta Yamane, Assoc. Prof. Jiahao Han, Mr. Takuma Kinoshita (D1), and Ms. Yuzu Yoshida (M1) attended “The IEEE International Magnetics Conference (INTERMAG 2026)” held in Manchester, UK on April 13-17, and gave presentations.

Dr. Uchimura was awarded the Graduate School of Engineering Award, Mr. Ahn was awarded the Outstanding Student Award of the Tohoku Chapter of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of Japan (IEEJ), and Ms. Yoshida was awarded the Outstanding Student Award of the Tohoku Chapter of the Institute of Electronics, Informationand Communication Engineers (IEICE). Congratulations!

The Commencement Ceremony was held. Mr. Chiba received the Doctor Degree of Engineering, Mr. Iwai, Mr. Kino, Mr. Saijo, and Mr. Yamamoto received the Master Degree of Engineering, and Mr. Ahn, Mr. Kazami, Mr. Fushimi, and Ms. Yoshida received the Bachelor Degree of Engineering.
Congratulations!

Mr. Iwai, Mr. Kino, Mr. Saijo, and Mr. Yamamoto will take off into the society. We wish you great success in the future!
In addition, Mr. Ahn will be taking a leave of absence from April to fulfill his military service in South Korea. We presented him with a commemorative message sheet.

Dr. Aakanksha Sud (Assistant Professor of the Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences (FRIS)) was awarded the Tokin Foundation Encouragement Award for her research on “Nonlinear spin dynamics and quantum geometry in magnonic systems”.
Congratulations!

The Iwate Spintronics School, 2026 Winter was held in Iwate Prefecture (Organizer: Koichi Oyanagi [Iwate Univ.], Ryuhei Kohno [Tohoku Univ.], Ryo Iguchi [NIMS}, Shunsuke Fukami [Tohoku Univ.], and Gerrit Bauer [Tohoku Univ.]).

We had 94 participants from 13 countries and regions including 16 invited speakers from overseas and 12 domestic invited speakers. 

From our lab, Prof. Ohno, Prof. Fukami, Dr. Cacoilo, Dr. Uchimura, Mr. Kinoshita, Mr. Tasaki, and Ms. del Pino participated in. 

We had a great time with excellent scientific discussion and excursion.

The paper, titled “A unified periodic table of quantum coherence for isotope engineering” by S.Kanai, S. Suzuki, and C.P. Anderson was published in MRS Bulletin.

Mr. Shunya Chiba (D3) is awarded the X-nics Student Presentation Poster Award for his poster presentation in the annual meeting of the Innovative Spintronics X Semiconductor Research Hub of the MEXT Initiative to Establish Next-generation Novel Integrated Circuits Centers (X-NICS).
The award is given to his presentation titled “Comparative Study of Current-Induced Torque in Cr/CoFeB/MgO and W/CoFeB/MgO”. Congratulations!

A Technical Review paper titled “Metrics for spin-based computing” by H. Kurebayashi, G. Finocchio, K. E.-Sitte, J. C. Gartside, T. Taniguchi, A. Litvinenko, A. Kumar, J. Åkerman, E. Vasilaki, K. Selçuk, K. Y. Çamsarı, A. Madhavan, and S. Fukami was published in Nature Reviews Physics.

Our paper “Emergent impedance due to antiferromagnetic domain wall dynamics” by Y. Yamane, J. J. Nakane, Y. Araki, and J. Ieda was published in Physical Review B.

Our paper “Reliable magnetometry for antiferromagnets and thin films: Correcting substrate artifacts in Mn3Sn/MgO systems” by K. Gas and M. Sawicki was published in Physical Review Applied.

A Perspective paper “Challenges and opportunities in orbitronics” by S. Fukami, K.-J. Lee, and M. Kläui was published in Nature Physics.

Our collaborative research with UC Santa Barbara and TSMC “BDAC-Free p-bits: Asynchronous Self-Coloring and On-Chip Annealing” by K. Selcuk, N. A. Aadit, C. Delacour, J. Q. Silva, N. S. Singh, H. Kaneko, S. Kanai, Y.-J. Wu, Y.-H. Chen, Y.-S. Chen, Y. C. Ong, K.-C. Huang, H. Chuang, H. Ohno, S. Fukami and K. Y. Camsari was presented in the 71st Annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM 2025) on December 9th in San Francisco.

Press release: “New Fully Digital Design Paves the Way for Scalable Probabilistic Computing”

Mr. Rishi Siddani (Visiting Student (DC)) returned to Imperial College London after three months stay.

Dr. Aakanksha Sud and Mr. Harumi Chiku (M1) won the Best Poster Award for their poster presentations at The International Symposium MSSp2025: Materials Science and Spintronics for Sustainable Futures from Tohoku held in Tohoku University from November 4th to 7th. The titles of their presentations were as follows:

Aakanksha Sud: Chiral Magnon–Phonon coupling in synthetic antiferromagnets for nonreciprocal energy transport
Harumi Chiku: Wireless signal energy harvesting based on field-free ferromagnetic resonance in magnetic tunnel junction

Congratulations!

The International Symposium MSSp2025: Materials Science and Spintronics for Sustainable Futures from Tohoku was held in Tohoku University from November 4th to 7th.
We had 285 participants in total including 223 on-site participants.

During the symposium, an award speech and ceremony for Assoc. Prof. Jiahao Han who received the 2025 Core Research Cluster for Spintronics Award (CRC-Spin Award 2025) were also conducted.

Our members, Assoc. Prof. Shun Kanai, Mr. Yuma Sato (D3), Mr. Kazunari Kino (M2), Mr. Hitoshi Iida (M1), and Mr. Kota Nihei (M1) attended “The 70th Annual Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM 2025)” held in Florida, USA on October 27-31, and gave presentations.

On October 11, we exhibited at the RIEC Open House 2025, held as part of the Tohoku University Research Institutes Open House “Katahira Festival 2025”.

In addition to a popular attraction for kids “Gauss Accelerator” and a challenge to create high-quality random numbers by hand, we presented several games including “Quantum Poker” in which principles of quantum mechanics such as uncertainty and entanglement are applied, with three members from the STAGE Center at the University of Chicago, our collaborative research partner. Many visitors enjoyed our exhibits.

The next event is scheduled for October 2027.

Our paper “Temperature dependence of current-induced switching in thin epitaxial films of Mn3Sn: Revealing the dominant role of spin–orbit torque” by K. Nihei, T. Uchimura, J. Han, K. Gas, S. Kanai, H. Ohno, and S. Fukami was published in Appl. Phys. Letters.

Our paper “Observation of a non-reciprocal skyrmion Hall effect of hybrid chiral skyrmion tubes in synthetic antiferromagnetic multilayers ” by T. Dohi, M. Bhukta, F. Kammerbauer, V. K. Bharadwaj, R. Zarzuela, A. Sud, M. -A. Syskaki, D. M. Tran, T. Denneulin, S. Wintz, M. Weigand, S. Finizio, J. Raabe, R. Frömter, R. E. D. -Borkowski, J. Sinova, and M. Kläui was published in Nature Communications.

Press release: “Three-dimensional magnetic vortices in synthetic antiferromagnets move differently than magnetic vortices in two dimensions” (Link to a webpage of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

Our paper “Electrically Tunable Picosecond-Scale Octupole Fluctuations in Chiral Antiferromagnets” by S. T. Konakanchi, S. Banerjee, M. M. Rahman, Y. Yamane, S. Kanai, S. Fukami, and P. Upadhyaya was published in Physical Review Letters.
The paper was selected as the Editor’s Suggestion.