The aims of this Research Area are to create high performance/high functionality devices utilizing the features of the information carrier, which holds the key to the information processing in devices, and furthermore, to create generic information system technologies that lead to social implementation by integration and systemization of those devices. In realizing a super smart society and the next-generation information society beyond it, more advanced devices and systems, which are responsible for information processing, will be indispensable. On the other hand, in conventional electronics, represented by miniaturization of CMOS, the limits of improvement in information processing capabilities are beginning to become apparent. Thus, novel material/device technologies that break through those limits and innovative generic technologies for their systemization are demanded.
　Therefore, the focus of research in this Research Area is information carriers, which hold the key to information processing in devices. Here, information carrier is a general concept that connotes a degree of freedom capable of carrying a wide range of information such as physical quantities, and the network structures and molecular structures of physical systems that express information defined as state variables. The objects of this Research Area are not limited to electric charge, which plays the role of an information carrier in many existing devices, but encompasses all information carriers that can carry information: spin states and molecular structures, phase changes of materials, quanta, and structural networks. The aim of this Research Area is to conduct an in depth exploration of the diverse information carriers that form the basis for functions such as information acquisition, conversion, storage, computation, communication and outputting, and also to create innovative new devices by utilizing those information carriers at a high order. Moreover, for those efforts to lead to the construction of systems capable of social implementation, the activities of this Research Area aim to beyond functional expression by a single device, also include cooperation with the circuits, architecture, systems and application layers by integration/systemization, with the aim of innovation of novel information system infrastructure. In particular, in this Research Area, we put great efforts into basic research on challenging material, devices and systems, based on the ideas of individual researchers.