Electrical and Computer Engineering

18716 – Advanced Applied Magnetism

12 units

Over the past decade, magnetism has once again become one of the dominant themes in material science and solid-state physics. Today, the development of new thin film recording media and the discovery of giant magnetoresistance have resulted in the amount of stored bits in a single disk drive to reach astronomical numbers. Rapid advances in spin-polarized electrical transport have brought to the horizon a new kind of electronics, called spintronics, with a new functionality based upon the spin of the carriers. The newly enriched magnetism brings unbounded technologic opportunities, yet full of challenges. This course will cover many of the important technological applications of advanced magnetism. The emphasis will be placed on how the basic principles and concepts are applied. The topics include:

1. Application and theory of spin dependent transport: CIP and CPP GMR devices, spin injection in semiconductors, spin LED, spin transistors, and spin current induced magnetic switching;
2. Engineering of the magnetic material properties for thin film recording media, recording heads, and magnetoresistive random access memory;
3. Thermally excited ferromagnetic resonance: mag-noise in magnetic devices, and thermally activated magnetization reversal;
4. Continuous and patterned magnetic films: magnetic bubble technology and patterned media;
5. Magnetostriction: magnetostrictive sensors;
6. Magnetic imaging techniques: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic force microscopy (MFM), differential-phase-contrast microscopy (DPC), SEMPA, and Kerr microscopy.

4 hrs. lec.

Prerequisite: 18-715 or equivalent upon instructor's approval and senior or graduate standing.

Last updated on March 20, 2007

ECE classifications

Undergraduate areas

Applied Physics

Graduate areas

Applied Physics (Solid State/Magnetics/Fields)

Past semesters

S05, S04, S03, F02, S97

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Please note that the course history information is incomplete and/or may reflect different courses offered under the same course number.