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/ Events

The spin on electronics!

28 - 29 September 2009 09:00 - 17:00

Organised by Professor Stuart Parkin FRS, Professor Gabriel Aeppli and Professor Bryan Hickey

Recent advances in generating, manipulating and detecting spin-polarized electrons promise entirely new classes of spin based sensor, memory and logic devices, generally referred to as the field of spintronics.

These advances are based on recent fundamental discoveries involving spin polarized current in novel nano-materials, including, giant tunnelling magnetoresistance, the spin Hall effect, and the excitation of magnetization via the transfer of spin angular momentum from spin polarized current.

The proceedings of this meeting have been published in an issue of Philosophical Transactions A.

Organisers

  • Professor Stuart Parkin FRS, Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics, Halle, Germany

    Professor Stuart Parkin is Managing Director, Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics, Halle, Germany, and an Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Parkin is also an IBM Fellow, Manager of the Magnetoelectronics group at the IBM Almaden Research Center. Parkin's research interests include oxide thin film heterostructures, high-temperature superconductors, and magnetic thin film structures and spintronic materials, and devices for advanced sensor, memory, and logic applications. Parkin’s discoveries in magneto-resistive thin film structures enabled a 1,000 fold increase in the storage capacity of magnetic disk drives. Most recently, Parkin’s research is focused on a novel storage class memory device, ‘Racetrack Memory’, and cognitive materials that could enable very low power computing technologies. Parkin is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of TWAS, the World Academy of Sciences and a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Parkin is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including, most recently, the 2012 von Hippel Award from the Materials Research Society, the 2013 Swan Medal of the Institute of Physics (London), and the 2014 Millennium Technology Award from the Technology Academy Finland (worth 1,000,000 Euros). Parkin was recently elected an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Parkin has published ~450 papers, has ~104 issued patents (USA) and has an h-index of 88.

  • Professor Gabriel Aeppli FRS, University College London, UK

    "Professor Aeppli is the Quain Professor of Physics and Director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology. Prior to taking up these posts in the autumn of 2002, he was a Senior Research Scientist for NEC (Princeton), a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, a Research Assistant at MIT, and an industrial co-op student at IBM. He obtained a BSc in Mathematics and PhD, MSc & BSc in Electrical Engineering from MIT. Honours include Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2012), Fellowship of the Royal Society (2010), the IOP (Institute of Physics) Mott Prize (2008), APS (American Physical Society) Oliver Buckley Prize(2005), the Majumdar Memorial Award of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science(2005), the IUPAP Magnetism Prize/Neel Medal(2003), Riso National Laboratory Fellow(2002), Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award(2002), Fellow of the American Physical Society(1997), and Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science(1996). In addition, he has been a member and chairman of many panels, sponsored by the USDOE, American Physical Society, EPSRC, and National Research Council (US), among others.

    Aeppli’s experience and involvement with nanotechnology are both managerial and scientific. He co-founded the interdisciplinary and interuniversity (Imperial and University Colleges) London Centre for Nanotechnology (www.london-nano.com), developed its overall problem-solving strategy, arranged for the procurement of a new laboratory/office facility dedicated to nanotechnology in central London, defined the operating model in collaboration with colleagues at both Colleges, and is now managing operations and future programme development.

    His personal research is currently focused on the implications of nanotechnology for information processing and health care. He is also a co-founder of Bio-Nano Consulting (BNC), a firm - spun out of the LCN and the IBE(Institute for Bio-Engineering at Imperial College) - which provides a range of services from due diligence to testing and prototyping in the nanotechnology arena.

    "

  • Professor Bryan Hickey