Professor Bowman's main research interests are in the discovery, development and properties of materials and artificial multilayers structures that offer new functionality and behaviour but with a strong pull/view to applications. In particular, he is currently investigating; in photonics, alternate plasmonic materials for harsh environments and, in magnetics, multilayers and materials with tailored permeability response in the GHz regime and the development of synthetic ferrimagnetic materials.

Increasingly, he is incorporating atomistic modelling into and complimenting the experimental programmes. He has authored/co-authored more than 120 publications in the refereed/conference literature. His research is recognised by the award of a prestigious Seagate Technology / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Advanced Materials for Data Storage. He is also the Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Photonic Integration and Advanced data Storage in partnership with University of Glasgow and over twelve industry partners (www.cdt-piads.ac.uk) His research has attracted major funding over a decade now from Seagate Technology and is also supported by EPSRC and EU.