The National Research Council (CNR) is the largest public research institution in Italy, the only one under the Research Ministry performing multidisciplinary activities. CNR’s mission is to perform research in its own Institutes, to promote innovation and competitiveness of the national industrial system, to promote the internationalization of the national research system, to provide technologies and solutions to emerging public and private needs, to advice Government and other public bodies, and to contribute to the qualification of human resources.

CNR-ISMN, the Institute for the Study of Nanostructured Materials, is a CNR research institute internationally renowned for its multidisciplinary activities in the field of nanostructured materials and enabling processes and technologies. The institute aims at generating state of the art knowledge in the field of Chemical Manufacturing and Science and Technology of Materials, and at exploiting the research results through the relationship with the industrial and business world.

In 80s-90s CNR-ISMN had a leading role worldwide in the development and establishment of the organic electronics and optoelectronics, and pioneered the organic spintronics in early 2000s. The group of Molecular Spintronics and Magnetism at CNR-ISMN has actively participated in the establishment of most of the achieved milestones in organic and molecular spintronics, such as the development of the Spinterface science, the realization of organic spintronic memristors, the discovery of the critical role of oxygen doping in organic spintronic devices and others. Currently the group is mainly focused on the research of interface based innovative devices, including the unconventional voltage control of magnetism, ultrafast electrical switching of magnetization, volatile and non-volatile electronic effects at hybrid interfaces etc.