The Physical Electronics Research Laboratory (PERL) at Northwestern University, led by Professor Pedram Khalili, develops the computing systems of the future, starting from the fundamentals. We create nano-scale devices and materials, and study how to use them in electronic systems with unprecedented performance and energy efficiency.

Much of our work involves devices that use both the spin and charge of electrons, also referred to as spintronics. Examples are magnetic memory and logic devices, magnetic tunnel junctions, devices based on emerging quantum materials, voltage control of magnetism, spin-orbit torques, spin waves, and microwave magnetic devices.

Examples of questions that we work on are:

• What are the fundamental energy & speed limits of computing & communication systems?

• Can new physics, materials, and devices be used to overcome these limits?

• What new circuits & architectures can be developed using these devices?

• Can we beat today's performance, energy, and scaling limits, each by > 100x?