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Associate Professor in the Department of Physics+44 (0) 191 33 43750

Biography

Aidan Hindmarch's profile on Mendeley

Aidan Hindmarch's profile on AIP UniPHY

Aidan Hindmarch's profile on Academia.edu

Departmental responsibilities
Teaching

In the 2019/20 academic year I am the Level 2 Laboratory Skills & Electronics module leader. I lecture the Broken Symmetry component of Level 3 Condensed Matter Physics, and the Level 2 Electronics course. I am level 2 Electronics labs course leader, and I supervise Level 2 laboratory skills classes. I supervise two Level 4 research project students working on experimental nanoscale magnetism.

I currently supervise five PhD students: Ariam Mora-Hernandez, Ben Nicholson and Charles Swindells (all fourth year); Luke Turnbull (second year); and Kalel Alsaeed (first year) all of whom work on spintronics and nanoscale magnetism.

I teach a postgraduate course on 'Data Acquisition' as part of the MSc in Scientific Computing and Data Analysis (MISCADA).

Administration

I chair the departmental Teaching Laboratories committee, where I also represent level 2 laboratories as module leader. As part of the Teaching Laboratories committee chair's role I also sit on the departmental Education committee, Undergraduate Student-Staff Consultative committee, Health & Safety committee, and Facilities committee. I sit on the Facilities committee also as academic-staff 'Champion' for the department's Mechanical Engineering Services facility, and on the Postgraduate Course Directors committee representing Condensed Matter Physics.

Research Interests
Spintronics

Conventional electronics utilises only the charge of the electron: Spintronics additionally uses the intrinsic 'spin' of the electron as a further state variable to process, convey, and store information. Novel spintronic device architectures promise both enhanced capabilities and reduced power consumption: one outcome of this so-far is the massive increase in magnetic data-storage capacity in recent years, which has enabled high data-capacity consumer technologies such as personal media players, internet email and data storage, and high-definition television-on-demand services. My research centres around the fundamental physical mechanisms underpinning spin-polarized electrical conduction and magnetism in nanostructured spintronic devices. This is achieved using a combination of magnetic and electrical measurements, in conjunction with synchrotron x-ray and neutron scattering techniques.

Spin-polarised currents naturally arise in ferromagnetic metals. However, the effects which are useful in harnessing such currents for spintronics - spin-coherence, electrostatic screening, and evanescent decay lengths; electron mean-free-paths; magnetic domain-wall widths etc. - typically involve lengthscales on the nanometer scale. The passage of spin-polarised currents through a device is intrinsically linked to the detailed electronic structure of materials, making it possible to probe fundamental quantum-mechanical effects in magnetic nanostructures from something as simple as electrical resistance measurements. In order to study and exploit spin-polarised currents it is often necessary to fabricate thin-film or multilayered magnetic devices: magnetic thin-films and nanostructures present a wealth of novel and interesting physics in themselves. One aspect in which I am interested is hybrid structures combining metallic magnetic materials with semiconductors: incorporating the spin degree of freedom in inorganic semiconductor (Si, GaAs etc.) devices allows extension of traditional functionality, whilst organic semiconductors provide the scope for spintronic functionality to be added in future low-cost printable and flexible electronics.

Thin-film and Interface magnetism

Nanomaterials bridge the gap between individual atoms and bulk material: Thin-films, consisting sometimes of only a few atomic monolayers, can exhibit very different electrical and magnetic properties than their bulk counterparts due to symmetry breaking at surfaces and interfaces reducing the dimensionality of the system, whereas in nanoclusters long-range translational symmetry is entirely removed. The competition surface/interface and volume effects means that varying film thicknesses or cluster sizes over only a very small, even sub-nanometer, range can result in drastic modification to how materials behave. This provides an ideal method to engineer suitable magnetic properties for a given device application. Much of my research in this are centred on the magnetic anisotropy found in magnetic metal-inorganic semiconductor hybrid contacts: forming an atomically abrupt interface between nanoscale layers of different classes of material often produces novel, interesting, and technologically useful effects.

Deposition and fabrication of thin-film devices

Functionality of many of the layered structures relevant for present and future spintronic devices relies heavily on the exact structure of the device materials on an atomic scale: crystal structure and orientation; abrupt, smooth layer interfaces and pattern definition etc., in addition to avoiding damage to the underlying material or structure during fabrication. In addition to a degree of control required in order to fabricate modern devices, the material growth techniques employed must also be suitable for the high throughput, rapid turnaround manufacturing processes required for large-scale industrial application.

Synchrotron x-ray & neutron scattering

Large scale facilities provide the ability to investigate both structure and magnetism in nanomaterials and devices. Synchrotron techniques allow element-specific structural and magnetic characterisation, in addition to nanoscale imaging. Neutron reflectivity methods are used to determine vector magnetization depth-profiles of buried structures and interfaces. National and international facilities are used in my research, including the ISIS neutron source and Diamond Light Source (UK), and the US National Synchrotron Light Source. Using these techniques provides many opportunities to understand the underlying physics behind the many magnetic interactions which can occur at surfaces and interfaces: with this understanding we are then able to tailor the material properties to provide enhanced performance and functionality in future devices (Image courtesy of NSLS, Brookhaven National Laboratory).

Esteem Indicators

  • 2019: Invited Seminar: Landau seminar series, Loughborough University, UK
  • 2019: Invited speaker: UK Neutron & Muon Science and User Meeting 2019, Warwick Univerity, UK
  • 2018: Technical program committee: IEEE International conference on Microwave Magnetics (ICMM) 2018
  • 2018: Invited speaker: STFC ISIS Large Scale Structures meeting 2018
  • 2017: Programme committee: Magnetism 2017, IOP national magnetism meeting, and session chair for 'Thin-films and nanomagnets' session, University of York, UK
  • 2017: Invited lecture: OP postgraduate magnetism techniques workshop 2017, Univerity of York, UK
  • 2017: Invited speaker: Royal Society of Chemistry Faraday Joint Interest Group Conference, Warwick University, UK
  • 2017: Invited seminar: University of Central Lancashire, UK
  • 2016: Plenary speaker: IOP Neutrons scattering group `Grand challenges' meeting 2016, London
  • 2016: Invited lecture: IOP postgraduate magnetism techniques workshop 2016, Univerity of York, UK
  • 2016: Invited speaker: Joint European Magnetics Symposium (JEMS) 2016, Glasgow, UK
  • 2016: Invited speaker: WALL Marie Curie ITN School on Domain Wall Motion and Spintronics, Spetses, Greece.
  • 2016: Invited speaker: XMaS users meeting 2016, University of Warwick, UK
  • 2015: Organiser: Durham UK-India workshop on magnetisation processes 2015
  • 2015: Invited speaker: IOP Ireland and Seagate Technology Conference: Thin Film Fabrication and Characterisation Techniques, and Their Application in Recording Head Wafer Manufacturing
  • 2015: Invited lecture: IOP postgraduate magnetism techniques workshop 2015, Univerity of York, UK
  • 2015: Programme committee: Magnetism 2015, IOP national magnetism meeting, and session chair for Session 8: Skyrmions and topological effects.
  • 2015: ISIS Facilities Access Panel: Member of FAP3 - Large-scale structures at STFC ISIS neutron facility
  • 2015: Editorial board member: Scientific Reports
  • 2015: Invited Seminar: University of Cardiff
  • 2015: Invited speaker: University of Newcastle Physics seminar series - first external invited speaker for new seminar series.
  • 2015: ISIS user committee: User representative for Large Scale Structures at STFC ISIS neutron facility
  • 2014: Invited lecture: IOP postgraduate magnetism techniques workshop 2014, Univerity of York, UK
  • 2014: Programme committee: Magnetism 2014, inaugural IOP national magnetism meeting.
  • 2014: Invited speaker: Science faculty workshop on 'Technology Enhanced Learning'
  • 2014: Session co-chair: Session CV - Nanowires and Assembled Nanoparticles I, at 59th Annual Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
  • 2013: Invited lecture: IOP postgraduate magnetism techniques workshop 2013, Univerity of York, UK
  • 2013: Invited speaker: Joint Korea-UK spintronics workshop, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK.
  • 2013: Invited seminar: S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata, India
  • 2012: Invited seminar: Department of Physics, University of Leeds
  • 2012: University research infrastructure funding: funding awarded by the university to begin setting up a laboratory for thin-film deposition.
  • 2012: Institute of Physics: Honorary Treasurer of IOP Magnetism group
  • 2012: Invited speaker: Joint Korea-UK spintronics workshop, Seoul, South Korea.
  • 2012: EPSRC Manufacturing the Future theme: Selected as one of the first members of the new Early Career Forum for Manufacturing Research, 2012-2014.
  • 2011: Institute of Physics: Elected member of Magnetism subject group committee.
  • 2011: Invited review article: Topical review on 'Interface magnetism in ferromagnet-compound semiconductor hybrid structures' for the inaugural issue of the spintronics and nanomagnetism journal 'Spin'.

Publications

Journal Article