Robert Buhrman

Principal Investigator

Robert Buhrman is the John Edson Sweet Professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics. Buhrman was the founding Director of the Center for Nanoscale Systems in Information Technologies, which was a National Science Foundation supported multidisciplinary research center at Cornell from 2001-2012. He has been a member of the Cornell Faculty since 1973. He served as Director of the School of Applied and Engineering Physics from 1988 to 1998, and as the Senior Vice Provost for Research for Cornell University from August 2007 until July 2017.  Throughout his career Buhrman’s research activities have been in the area of applied condensed matter physics and nanoscale science and engineering, with a current focus on nanomagnetic materials and spintronics devices. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Buhrman has supervised the thesis research of 53 PhD graduates and the post-graduate research of 18 post-doctoral scholars. Over the past 17 years Buhrman and his co-authors have published approximately 100 publications in the nanomagnetics and spintronics area that have received more than 16,000 citations in the scientific and engineering literature. Among the contributions of Buhrman and his collaborators are the first definitive demonstration of spin transfer torque switching in magnetic nanostructures, the demonstration of persistent microwave oscillation in dc spin transfer torque excited magnetic nanostructures, a pioneering demonstration of spin transfer torque switching and excitation effects in magnetic tunnel junctions, and the discovery of a giant spin Hall effect in Pt, Ta and W thin films, and the demonstration of its effective application in novel 3-terminal spin torque devices.

Current Members

Lijun Zhu

Lijun Zhu

Postdoc

Dr. Lijun Zhu received his Ph.D. degree in 2014 from the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences.  His thesis topic was: Materials with giant perpendicular anisotropy. From Jun. 2014-Feb. 2016, he worked on spin dynamics as a postdoc with Prof. Woltersdorf at the Martin-Luther University in Halle Germany.  Since March 2016 Lijun has been conducting research in the Buhrman group with his focus on developing new materials with strong spin Hall effects for achieving efficient spin-orbit-torque-switching of MRAM devices.

Yongxi Ou

Yongxi Ou

Graduate Student

Yongxi Ou received his B.S. degree in Physics from Peking University where he conducted research with graphene and topological insulators.   Currently group Yongxi is studying spin-orbit interactions in thin film systems.

Shengjie Shi

Shengjie Shi

Graduate Student

Shengjie Shi received his B.S. degree in Physics from the Jiao Tong University in Shanghai China.  His research interests are on enhancing the efficient and fast spin orbit torque switching of magnetic structures and on developing improved magnetic tunnel junctions.

Ryan Tapping

Ryan Tapping

Graduate Student

Ryan Tapping received his B.S. degree in Physics from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champlain Ill.  His current research is on the study of the spin Hall effect in heavy metal materials and its applications in spintronics

See list of Former Members