Mission Statement

 Our group studies electronic, magnetic and structural properties of nanostructured ferromagnetic materials. Projects include design and construction of ultra high vacuum film production and characterization systems, an electron beam evaporation system for thin film production, a magneto-optical characterization system, and an optical lithography line for magnetoelectronic microcircuits.  Materials characterization techniques include electron, x-ray and neutron diffraction; electron and scanned probe microcscopy including SEM, STM, AFM and MFM; magnetic methods with AGM, VSM and MOKE; optical methods with spectroscopic ellipsometry; and electron spectroscopy including UPS, IPS, and XPS with laboratory and synchrotron radiation sources. The successful implementation of these experiments has yielded large and complex data sets and understanding of the data requires detailed analysis and modeling of physical phenomena including photoemission from solids, magnetic hysteresis behavior, magnetic force microscopy, and desorption of gases from surfaces.  Collaborations with scientists at the Center for Materials for Information Technology as well as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Louisiana State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin Madison greatly strengthen the research program.