Magnetism & Spin Electronics News

Prof. Michael Coey was awarded a Friendship award from the Chinese government, presented by Prmier Li Qiang at a ceremony with 32 recipients in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing. 

The Chinese translation of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials by J. M. D. Coey was published this year by the University of Science and Technology of China Press.

In December Prof. Michael Coey was awarded an Honorary Degree from Trinity College Dublin. This is Trinity's highest honour and the degree was awarded from the Chancellor, Dr. Mary McAleese in the Public Theater on December 1st. Mike has worked in the field of magnetism and magnetic materials for over 40 years in the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin. 

Simon Lenne and Lucy Prendeville have been each awarded a 750$ travel grant to attend the 2023 Intermag conference in Sendai, Japan. Only twelve students were awarded travel bursaries in total. Well done Simon and Lucy! Both Simon and Lucy presented their work at the conference in the form of a talk, with Simon speaking about single layer spin orbit torque in a heusler alloy and Lucy presenting on Mn₄N, the non-collinear ferrimagnetic system.

Dr. Jack O'Brien has successfully defended his PhD thesis on 'Novel Characterisation and Modelling Techniques for Spintronic Materials'. Jack has been working in the group since 2018 and we are delighted for him to continue with us as a postdoctoral researcher for another two years. Well done Jack!

Dr. Zexiang Hu has successfully defended his PhD work on 'Magnetisation, Anomalous Hall Effect and Single Pulse Partial All-optical Switching in Amorphous Rare-earth Transition-metal Thin Films'. Zexiang joined the group in 2019. We are delighted for you Zexiang, well done!

We congratulate Dr. Yangkun He for taking up a position of Associate Professor at Beihang University as part of the 1000 talent programme. Well done Yangkun!

Prof. Michael Coey has been awarded a Cooperation Award from the Chinese Academy of International Sciences and Technology.

A new two-year FITSMAP project is running in the group, from December 2022 - December 2024. The project focusses on the growth and characterisation of Mn₄N and Mn_4-xGa_xN thin films on MgO substrates, with the aim of realising a proof-of-concept switch based on the topological Hall effect in these non-collinear ferrimagnetic systems.

Dr. Tim Butcher has taken up a position at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland.

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Yangkun He to the group this year. Yangkun completed his PhD in Beihang University in 2018, researching the microstructure and mechanism for giant magnetostriction in Fe-Ga alloys with trace rare-earth dopants under the supervision of Prof. Chengbao Jiang. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher for 3 years in the group of Prof. Claudia Felser at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids researching skyrmion and hard magnets for magnetic recording. Welcome Yangkun, we're very happy for you to join us!

Mn₂Ru_xGa, or MRG, has been shown to demonstrate the fastest ever recorded switching of a magnetic material. The work, which was led by Dr. Chandrima Banerjee and Dr. Jean Besbas, was published in Physical Review Letters this year. Read all of the details here!

Past group member Nora Dempsey was one of four scientists to win the 2021 CNRS Innovation Medal. This award recognises her outstanding work in the fabrication, characterisation and use of high-performance micro-magnets. Read about her story here!

A huge congratulations to Katarzyna Siewierksa for passing her PhD viva on February 25th of this year. The viva exam was held online with external examiner Prof. YoshiChika Otani and internal examiner Prof. Igor Shvets. Her thesis is titled 'Development and Characterisation of a Zero-Moment Half-Metal.' Well done Kat!

This year two members of our group, Tim Butcher and Ajay Jha, were awarded bursaries to the value of €3000 as part of the Intel- Trinity MOU program. Students pursuing a masters or those in their final year of PhD were eligible for the award. We are delighted for Tim and Ajay - both very well deserved!

We say farewell to Chandrima who is leaving us after 2 years to join the group of Oren Cohen at the Technion in Israel. Chandrima has really helped us advance fast opto-magnetism in our group and opened up new ideas and ways of working. We wish her every success in her new work on ultimate attosecond investigations of magnetic materials and we look forward to continuing to cooperate with her in the future.

Rhian, the only Welsh speaker ever to work in our Group, joined Barclays Finance in 2000 just after completing her PhD on mixed valence manganites. She came to understand that finance was more than more than matchmaking willing lenders with willing borrowers, but along with Science, probably the most important tool for reshaping the world. She became a passionate advocate of the green agenda to combat climate change and is now CEO of the Green Finance Institute. Find out about it here and listen to her 40-minute interview of Mary Robinson here . The OBE is a British honour for people who have contributed to the arts, sciences or public service. Only about one person in a thousand ever receives such an honour.

We are all extremely proud of Plamen Stamenov on his election to Fellowship this year. A very deserving candidate - Plamen has greatly contributed to both research and teaching in the School of Physics. A Trinity Monday like no other!

Lucy Prendeville went to Grenoble this March for the 30^th edition of Hercules; the 5-week European school to learn about synchrotron and neutron radiation sources. Unfortunately, after two weeks all students had to return home as a result of Covid-19. However, the course continued online for the following three weeks over Zoom - consiting of both lectures and tutorial sessions. She had a fantastic experience and would like to thank all of the organisers for ensuring the continuation of lectures in such difficult circumstances.

Three of our first year PhD students spent a week in Rome at the 5^th Italian Magnetism School, organised by the AIMagn Association. They learned about a wide range of topics in magnetism including spintronics, magnonics, magnetocalorics and magnetometry! A huge thank you to all of the organisers of this very successful spring school - in particular to Gaspare Varvaro, a former summer student of our group!