Educational Background:

• BSc Mathematics and Physics, 2016–2019,

Keele University, UK

• MSc Theoretical Physics, 2020-2021.

University of Glasgow, UK

CDT PhD Project: Multimode Cavity Magnonics

Supervisor: Dr Rair Macêdo  

Electronics & Nanoscale Engineering Division, James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow

Project description: 

The understanding of electronic charge throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries underpinned a digital revolution that has rapidly changed society. An additional degree of freedom of the electron discovered in the early twentieth century, spin, has provided the data storage capacity necessary for the information age, as well as enabling advances over a wide remit from medical diagnostics to communication technology.

The behaviour of spin is relatively complex compared to charge, but with this difficulty comes opportunity. Spin systems in magnetic materials can arrange themselves into intricate topologies, undulate in unique wave-like modes, and be brought into harmony with many other physical systems. One such harmony is between light and spin. In the RF and microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum, light often dances to the same tune as the precessional motion which can be stimulated in spins and their coalescence in the continuum field of magnetisation. This is the foundation of a range of technologies that have been essential to microwave engineering over the past several decades.

In the last decade these magnetic systems have been explored within the context of quantum technologies. Strong coupling to microwave resonators allows the quantised excitation modes of ferromagnetic materials, magnons, to coherently exchange energy with microwave photons. The magnon can also couple to many other types of excitation; from mechanical modes to optical light, and even directly with different types of qubits. It is of great interest to further investigate magnons as a conduit for hybrid quantum systems, and in doing so determine competitive and novel use cases harnessing the functional benefits of magnetic materials.

General Research Interests:

• Electrodynamics
• Magnonics
• Photonics
• Quantum Optics

Contact:

Advanced Research Centre, 11 Chapel Lane, University of Glasgow, G11 6EW

m.smith.10@research.gla.ac.uk