His project, TOPOLOGIQ – Tuning Oxide Pyrochlores: Optimizing Lattices for Observable GeneratIon of Quantum magnetoelectric phenomena, has received funding for five years to explore the use of ferromagnetic pyrochlores in next-generation quantum technologies.
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded €761 million in Starting Grants to 478 early-career researchers across Europe. These grants, part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, will enable young scientists to launch projects, form teams, and pursue innovative ideas in fields ranging from physical sciences and engineering to life sciences and the humanities.
Researchers of 51 nationalities will carry out their projects in 25 European countries, with the highest numbers in Germany (99), the UK (60), the Netherlands (44), and France (41). Spain secured 32 grants, matching the UK. Competition was fierce: 3,928 proposals were submitted, but only about 12% were funded. Each grant provides up to €1.5 million over five years, with possible top-ups for major equipment, relocation, or large-scale experiments. Notably, 42% of the grantees are women, maintaining stable gender representation in recent years. This round of grants is expected to create around 3,000 jobs in Europe’s research sector.
About the Project: TOPOLOGIQ
TOPOLOGIQ aims to stabilize artificial heterostructures based on ferromagnetic pyrochlores in order to break inversion symmetry at the nanoscale, enabling the control of topological magnons using electric fields. The final goal is to develop highly energy-efficient devices.
Pyrochlores are a family of complex oxide materials with the general formula A₂B₂O₇, where A and B are typically rare-earth and transition metal ions, respectively. Their unique crystal structure gives rise to geometrical frustration, a condition in which the magnetic interactions between atoms cannot all be simultaneously satisfied. This makes pyrochlores ideal platforms to explore exotic magnetic and electronic phenomena, such as spin ices, quantum spin liquids, and more recently, topological magnons — quantized spin waves that could enable new types of low-power, heat-based information transport where information is carried by spin rather than charge, significantly reducing energy loss. In the TOPOLOGIQ project, these materials are used to design artificial heterostructures where symmetry can be broken at the nanoscale to unlock new quantum functionalities.
Magnons — spin excitations that carry heat and information — have the potential to replace electrons in low-energy-consumption devices. However, topological magnons, which could revolutionize heat management and dissipation-free computing, have been experimentally confirmed only in a very few systems.
TOPOLOGIQ addresses this challenge directly by focusing on a class of materials that show promising experimental signatures (such as the magnon Hall effect), but whose topological properties remained elusive so far. If successful, the project could unlock a new class of quantum materials, ferromagnetic pyrochlores, with strong implications for energy-efficient technologies.
“This project is high-risk because topological magnons have not been experimentally confirmed in an epitaxial system. But it’s precisely this challenge that makes it so relevant,” explains De Luca.
"Also, the project focuses on 3d transition metal oxides (such as vanadium and manganese), which are more abundant than 4d and 5d elements, aligning with principles of sustainability", he adds.
“In addition, thanks to the development of this research, we are going to establish two unique technological facilities: a RHEED-equipped sputtering system (only the third worldwide) to manufacture high-precision materials, and a second-harmonic generation laboratory to study their properties using advanced optical techniques. With this, we will benefit both the Spanish and the European scientific community in this field of research,” adds the recent ERC Starting Grant awardee.
About Gabriele De Luca
Gabriele De Luca is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at ICMAB since January 2023. He studied Physics in ‘Federico II’ University in Napoli (Italy), completed his PhD in Materials Science at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in 2017, and later worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich (2018–2021). In spring 2019, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (USA), and between 2021–2022, he held a Swiss Postdoc Mobility scholarship funding his research stay at ICN2 in Barcelona (Spain).
His research focuses on the growth and characterization of complex oxide heterostructures, and how their electronic, magnetic, and structural properties evolve at the nanoscale — key to designing the materials that will power tomorrow’s technologies. At ICMAB, De Luca is part of the MULFOX group, working to decode how complex oxide interfaces can lead to new and emergent functionalities, through mechanisms like epitaxial strain, charge transfer, structural frustration, and electrostatic coupling.
This ERC Starting Grant will allow him to consolidate his research line and establish his own team at ICMAB. Congratulations to Gabriele De Luca on this outstanding achievement! Stay tuned for updates as the TOPOLOGIQ project unfolds.
About the ERC Starting Grant
The ERC Starting Grant supports early-career researchers who demonstrate the potential to become research leaders. It provides up to €1.5 million over five years to establish their own independent research team and program. Projects funded under this scheme are high-risk, high-gain, and are selected for their scientific excellence and transformative potential.
For more information, visit the ERC Starting Grant website.
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