Physics
Casey Miller
Casey Miller
Assistant Professor
Contact
Office: PHY 404
Lab: SCA 420
Phone: 813/974-7771
Email:
Links
Education
Ph.D. physics, 2003, University of Texas at Austin
Research
- Spintronics
- Spin-dependent tunneling
- Spin-polarization measurements
- Spin-injection
- Magnetic thin films and heterostructures
Research Outline:
The grand challenges of nanomagnetism are the creation, exploration, and understanding of collective, emergent magnetic phenomena exhibited by nanoscale materials. My interests focus on facets of these challenges related to spintronics, specifically spin transport phenomena in multilayer magnetic heterostructures. My laboratory employs two tools of nanoscience to investigate spin-dependent transport: geometric confinement, and physical proximity. New properties arise when well known materials are confined in one or more dimensions, for example, by growing them as thin films and/or via nanolithography techniques. Similarly, novel phenomena originate from the proximity of dissimilar materials in multi-component systems, such as thin film heterostructures. Materials and devices are fabricated by a combination of thin film growth and lithography, then characterized via cryogenic transport measurements in high magnetic fields.
Research Highlight
Spin-Dependent Tunneling for Spin-Electronics.
This figure shows an over simplified band structure representation of magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) fabricated in Prof. Miller's Spintronics Lab. The parallel state (a) has low tunneling resistance, while adensity of states bottleneck causes a relatively high resistance in the antiparallel state (b). These different states serve as the binary logic basis for data storage, sensing, and other spintronics applications.
Current Courses