Advances in the fabrications and characterization of magnetic structures and devices brought us to the brink of full control and technological applications of the intrinsic dynamics of the magnetic order parameter on nanometer length scales. The time is therefore ripe to expect breakthroughs of our fundamental understanding of the excited states of a fascinating many-body system.

The magnetization order parameter is non-volatile and magnetoelectronic devices are ‘instant-on’, thereby offering tremendous potential for conserving energy as compared to conventional CMOS electronics. Heat management such as spot cooling by spin based Peltier effects and novel heat scavenging strategies are offered by the spin Seebeck effect. Possible applications depend on the above-mentioned breakthrough in our understanding of the controlled manipulation of small magnets on short time and length scales. Such a deep fundamental understanding is therefore essential for future high density data storage and processing as well as green information technologies.

Traditionally, magnetizations have only been manipulated by external magnetic fields. Only recently it has been discovered that various different probes are faster and scalable, such as the charge and heat current driven spin-transfer torques, polarized fs laser pulses, or mechanical actuation. We believe that there is an urgent need to bring together researchers with different backgrounds who strive to obtain identical goals, viz. understanding the excited states of magnetic nanostructures. This GRC will gather experimental, computational, and theoretical physicists from academia and industry with backgrounds in optics, mechanics, electronics and thermoelectrics to exchange ideas and to discuss the most recent progress and pressing problems.