Prof. Randall Victora of University of Minnesota

The first part of my talk will discuss our quantitative predictions for the non-linear response of a magnetic thin film subject to microwave radiation. Three magnon and four magnon processes are shown to cause this nonlinearity with a strong dependence on magnetic bias field, microwave frequency and applied power. The beneficial effects of an added lower frequency signal is discussed.  Comparison to experiment and an explanation of how the effects can be exploited in a device is presented.  Predictions are calculated using a large scale micromagnetic simulation executed on Graphical Processing Units (GPU) and include thermal fluctuations.  A mathematical formalism specific to thin films is developed to explain the aforementioned behavior of such magnetic materials, based on their predicted magnon dispersion-relation.

The second part of the talk will discuss the UMN-ECE model for research, teaching, and service. This will include faculty expectations, our revised core curriculum, and incentives for development of large proposals. 

Biography:

Professor Randall Victora received B.S. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980, and a PhD from UC Berkeley in 1985.  He then joined Kodak Research Laboratories, where he worked until joining the University of Minnesota in 1998.  His research interest is theory and simulation of magnetic materials, primarily directed towards spintronic memories, microwave interactions with magnetic materials, and magnetic recording hard disk drives.  He is best known for his work on recording media, for which he has received several awards including the Achievement Award of the IEEE Magnetics Society.  He has served as president of the IEEE Magnetics Society and as General Chair of the 50th Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials.  Professor Victora is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of IEEE.  He became Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering in July 2015.