Ferrons and Magnons: friends or foes?

Workshop, July 7th - 9th, 2026

Ferromagnets/Ferroelectrics are materials in which magnetic/electric dipoles spontaneously align below an often high critical temperature. Applied magnetic/electric fields switch this order in devices such as MRAM/EPROM non-volatile memories. Magneto/electro-caloric cooling applications employ the entropy changes associated with the dipolar order. Both material classes are useful in electronics as inductors/capacitors.

“Magnonics” is a subfield of magnetism that studies spin waves, the excitations of the magnetic order that are quantized into “magnons”. A community that studies polarization waves or “ferrons” in ferroelectrics does not exist yet.
This interdisciplinary workshop brings together researchers actively interested in the excitations of the magnetic and ferroelectric orders, magnons and ferrons, respectively, motivated by recent seminal experimental results that both confirm and challenge existing theories of ferron excitations.

If you would like to attend the workshop, please apply by sending your abstract at spice(at)uni-mainz.de before April 20th 2026. If you don't have an abstract, you can also apply by submitting a short explanation of why you would like to attend the workshop. If your application is successful, you will receive a link to register in May 2026. Participation fee is 650 euros. Accommodation is not included.

Organizers
Gerrit Bauer, Tohoku University/UCAS
Xianzhe Chen, Fudan
Ryo Iguchi, NIMS
Ping Tang, Tohoku University

Invited Speakers

Manuel Bibes, CNRS Hiroto Adachi, Okayama U Long-Qing Chen, The Pennsylvania State University Giovanni Finocchio, University of Messina Marcos Guimarães, RU Groningen Jorge Iñiguez, Luxemburg Dominik Juraschek, Eindhoven University of Technology Dennis Meier, NTNU & University of Duisburg Alexander Mook, JGU Alvaro Nunez, University of Chile Delaram Rashadfar, OSU Sergio Rezende, UFPE Eiji Saitoh, Tokyo U

Ka Shen, Beijing Normal U Libor Šmejkal, MPI Dresden Nicola Spaldin, ETH Jiang Xiao, Fudan Kenji Yasuda, Cornell Tao Yu, HUST Ilaria Zardo, U Basel Changgan Zeng, USTC Yuelin Zhang, Beijing Normal U Zhicheng Zhong, USTC Xiaoyang Zhu, Columbia U