Scholar Profiles

I have always been fascinated with the natural world. It was a privilege to study Physics during my undergraduate degree. Things got very exciting when I really started doing Physics in my PhD. I study spintronics in organic semiconductors. These materials, for example polymers are great for studying spintronic effects. This is due to long spin life times and spin diffusion lengths. The spins in these materials survive for much longer and travel much farther than conventional inorganic materials. These are great properties for transferring information. The end goal of our research is to produce devices that operate on spin currents rather than charge currents. This will allow us to make very powerful computers which would use very little energy. One other advantage is that these polymers are flexible and one can produce flexible devices with them. This is already being implemented in modern smart phones and TVs.

My aim is to separate and study pure spin currents. To do this, I am looking at Inverse Spin Hall Effect. To inject a spin current into my device, I use ferromagnetic resonance spin pumping. This spin current is then converted inside the material into a charge current which can be measured as it is impossible to measure the spin current directly. There are several artefacts that can produce the same signal as what I am looking for so it is important to think about and isolate all of them. The experiments tend to be complex with the added complexity of using organic materials, however this is exactly what makes them so fascinating!