Dr Stuart Cavill
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Condensed Matter Physics

Profile

Career

• BSc (Nottingham, 1996)
• PhD Physics (Nottingham, 2000)
• Senior Beamline Scientist (Diamond Light source, 2005)
• Lecturer in Condensed Matter Physics (York, 2013)

Summary of expertise

• Magnetic materials & Nanostructures
• Multiferroics
• Magnetization Dynamics
• Soft X-ray Spectroscopy and Imaging

Research

Overview

Research group: Condensed Matter Physics | Hybrid Spintronics

The direction of the magnetisation in elements used to store information is usually set by either using an electrical current to generate a local magnetic field or by making use of a spin transfer torque (STT). These techniques have disadvantages arising from the energy dissipated in applying electrical currents and the difficulty in addressing individual elements due to stray magnetic fields. One possible solution to overcome these issues is to use novel functional materials based displaying multiferroicity, in which the magnetisation can be modified by the application of an electric field.

Our future research targets will be those of outstanding interest in nanoscale multiferroic materials, particularly in areas with direct device applications. We intend to fabricate intrinsic and hybrid multiferroic materials and use a combination of techniques to explore their response to the application of high frequency magnetic, optical, and electrical pulses. The aim will be to understand the various processes that govern the spin dynamics in these systems in order to improve write times and scalability. As such this research will not only have direct relevance for data storage technologies, but for spintronic and magnetic microwave devices also.

Projects

• Magnetoelectric Hexaferrites
• Strain controlled Magnetisation Dynamics
• Heusler SpinFET

Research group(s)

• Condensed Matter Physics: Spintronics and Magnetism

Available PhD research projects

• Configurable Magnonic Crystals (funded) 

Supervision

• James Beevers
• Christopher Love
• Ohoud Alsaqer
• Irene Azaceta

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Electrons in Solids (Yr 3)
• First Year Laboratories (Head)