Kai Chen awarded the 2017 GMAG Outstanding Dissertation in Magnetism Award

Congratulations to Kai Chen, a graduate student of Professor Shufeng Zhang, who has been selected by the APS Topical Group on Magnetism and its Applications (GMAG) as the winner of the 2017 GMAG Outstanding Dissertation in Magnetism Award, for his work entitled "Spin transport in magnetic nanostructures". GMAG recognizes PhD students who have conducted outstanding research leading to their dissertation. Kai Chen shares his abstract below to further explain his research concentration.

"Angular momentum transport in magnetic nanostructures plays a central role in spintronic physics and devices. The angular momentum currents or spin currents can be mediated by either quasiparticle such as electrons and magnons, or by macroscopic order parameters such as local magnetization of ferromagnets. We have investigated several different spin transport topics.
First, we studied the spin pumping effect which is the conversion between long wavelength magnons current and conduction electron spin current. Our results indicate the interfacial spin-orbit coupling dominates the spin current relaxation. Second, we show that the antiferromagnetic insulator (AFI) is capable of conducting spin current. Furthermore, insertion of a thin NiO film between YIG and Pt enhances the spin Seebeck signal by one order of magnitude. Third, we derived an electron spin transport equation in a 2 dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Our results indicate that electrical spin injection into a 2DEG with SOC leads to a spin accumulation enhancement in weak impurity scattering limit."