Only a week after the APS March Meeting, I went to Berlin for the DPG Spring Meeting. The DPG was like the usual. I listened to talks of colleagues in Germany and from neighbor countries, discuss with my collaborators on some new ideas and common projects, and hung out with some of them in the evening to catch up. On the weekend after the conference, I also took a chance to do tourism of the city Berlin! Brandenburger TorReichstagsgebäudeBerliner DomFernsehturm und RathausBerliner Weisse (Waldmeister, Kirsch oder Himbeere ..read more

This year in March, I joined two mega-conferences; APS (American Physical Societ) March Meeting and DPG (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft) Spring Meeting. The APS took place at Minneapolis in the US, and the DPG took place at Berlin in Germany. For the APS, which was my first time, I had the following impressions: There’re a lot of people from many countries! People are very diverse. The spirit is quite similar to other annual main annual conferences, like KPS (Korean Physical Society) and DPG. But the APS is definitely the biggest. You have chances to meet nearly anyone. If you want to di ..read more

Recently on YouTube, I watched a very interesting discussion on whether we can dream about one’s own death. It was a part of a TV show in Korean, in which several scientists from different areas chat about the topics that everyone on earth might be curious about. Although I felt sometimes the show stretched a bit more than what it is (I understand that this would be necessary for attracting the attention from general public, as long as it is not a lie), I liked the show very much. Anyway, the consensus on the possibility of dreaming about one’s own death from the show was “impossible” because ..read more

Two weeks ago, we had unusually heavy snow in our region. On the 17th, when it started to snow from the afternoon, I was still in the research center, so by the time when I was about to leaving, there was thick snow everywhere in the parking lot. I was hesitating for a while if I can drive or not, but I decided to go very carefully like other cars. I think it took nearly 2 hours for the distance which usually takes 30 mins! Well, I think I learned several lessons on how to maneuver the car on snow, but most importantly, it is always better if I can avoid driving! On the next day, as expected ..read more

In the beginning of the year, right after the holiday, I joined the seminar on magnetism in Physikzentrum. The building is very elegant with high ceiling and big almost like a castle. It also has a cozy celler, where everyone can relax and discuss while having a few drinks in the evening. The seminar was organized by Alexander Mook and Helena Reichlova, with the central theme of van der Waals magnets. The whole program was very well structured and planned. What I particularly liked was that each invited speaker presented for 45 mins, so one could develop their ideas and claims progressively s ..read more

Happy new year everyone. From mid-December 2023 till the new year, I had good time for travelling and having relaxing moment at home. I travelled to beatiful places in Austria as well as the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava. In Austria, the weather was exceptioanlly warm for winter. I felt quite strange, but it was quite convenient for travelling. During the vacation, we rougly visited the following places indicated on the map: Because this article would become really long if I say everything, I would just like to share only a few pictures, which are my favorites: Salzburg and beautiful mount ..read more

In the last few days, I had a chance to think about some fundamental aspects of Berry phase and related transport phenomena. What triggered me is the ICMAB school on orbital currents, where I explained how the orbital-dependent emergent gauge field appears in the theoretical description. Also, at last, I am finalizing the manuscript on the orbital-dependent anomalous position, and as I go through all the equations line by line, I start to think lots of things. To be honest, I think I don’t really understand the nature of Berry phase effects yet. I know the definition, mathematical properties ..read more

Soon after I returned back to Germany from the trip to Korea, I went to another trip to Barcelona. I joined the School on Orbital Currents in ICMAB as one of the lectureres. My lecture slides can be downloaded from the following link. The other lecturers were Tatiana G. Rappoport (Uni Rio de Janeiro), Enric Canadell (ICMAB), Hyun-Woo Lee (POSTECH), Aurélien Manchon (CINaM Aix-Marseille Uni), and Can Onur Avci (ICMAB). Each covered different aspects in orbitronics, and the combination of all made the entire school program very rich. Everything was nicely organized by by Josep Fontcuberta and Ge ..read more

After the orbitronics workshop, I moved to Busan to participate in the Korean Magnetics Society meeting for the winter of 2023, where I also gave an invited talk. This time, because the audience was broad, I presented an overview on orbitronics, my own reconstruction of the development of the field. I think my talk went fine (I gave a similar talk for more than ten times so far…). Busan, the city where we stayed, is in fact my hometown, and I know the area very well. So, every morning and evening, when I have some free time, I tried to walk on my own or with my colleagues and friends. The atmo ..read more

After spending time at POSTECH, I spend the weekend with my parents. We had nice time together, and it was time for me to relax a bit. Of course, I tried to eat as many nice home made dishes as possible. Since my suitcases arrived, I was able to give them all the good from France and Germany! On Sunday evening, I went to Daejeon to participate in the orbitronics workshop at KAIST. This was in fact the main reason for me to come to Korea because it is probably the most important scientific meeting of the year for me. It was the second workshop of this new research field since the last one which ..read more