Vincent Sokalski

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 2011
Summary:

Our research is focused on the exploration of novel magnetic & spintronic materials for memory, logic, and HDD storage applications. We concentrate on the development of thin films & nanoscale devices that will enable improved energy efficiency, non-volatility, and scalability to ever-decreasing dimensions. Current research efforts include crystallographic & microstructural characterization of perpendicular magnetic recording media, materials for spin hall effect devices, spin transfer torque magneto-resistive random access memory (STT-MRAM), and magnetic interactions in soft nanogranular composite thin films.

Students
Namesort descending Position Email
Lau, Derek Graduate Student dklau@cmu.edu
Li, Maxwell Graduate Student mpli@andrew.cmu.edu

Derek Lau

Graduate Student

dklau@cmu.edu
5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh PA, 15213

Affiliation:

Materials Science & Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University

Websites:

Maxwell Li

Graduate Student

mpli@andrew.cmu.edu
4301 Wean Hall, Pittsburgh PA, 15213

Affiliation:

Materials Science & Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University

Websites:

Most Cited Publications
  1. "Optimization of Ta thickness for perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction applications in the MgO-FeCoB-Ta system," Vincent Sokalski, Matthew T. Moneck, En Yang, and Jian-Gang Zhu, Appl. Phy. Lett. 101, 072411 (2012)
  2. "Energetic molding of chiral magnetic bubbles," Vincent Sokalski, Derek Lau, Vignesh Sundar, and Jian-Gang Zhu,  Physical Review B, 94 060401 (2016)
  3. "Experimental modeling of intergranular exchange coupling for perpendicular thin film media," Vincent Sokalski, David E. Laughlin, and Jian-Gang Zhu, Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 102507 (2009)
  4. "Characterization of Oxide Materials for Exchange Decoupling in Perpendicular Thin Film Media," V. M. Sokalski, J. G. Zhu and D. E. Laughlin, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 46, 2260 (2010)
  5. "Experimental demonstration of four-terminal magnetic logic device with separate read-and write-paths." DM Bromberg, MT Moneck, VM Sokalski, J Zhu, L Pileggi, JG Zhu Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), 2014 IEEE International
Recent Publications
  1. "Simultaneous control of interlayer exchange coupling and the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in Ru-based synthetic antiferromagnets." Prudnikov, Aleksandr, Maxwell Li, Marc De Graef, and Vincent Sokalski. IEEE Magnetics Letters (2018).
  2. "Disentangling factors governing Dzyaloshinskii domain wall creep in Co/Ni thin films using PtxIr1−x seedlayers," D. Lau, J.P. Pellegren, H.T. Nembach, J.M. Shaw, and V. Sokalski, arXiv:1808.05520v1
  3.  "Lorentz TEM investigation of chiral spin textures and N\'eel Skyrmions in asymmetric [Pt/(Co/Ni)M /Ir] N multi-layer thin films." Li, Maxwell, Derek Lau, Marc De Graef, and Vincent Sokalski. arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.02012 (2018).
  4. "Magnetic domain wall Skyrmions," Ran Cheng, Maxwell Li, Arjun Sapkota, Anish Rai, Ashok Pokhrel, Tim Mewes, Claudia Mewes, Di Xiao, Marc De Graef, and Vincent Sokalski, arXiv:1809.02730v1 (2018).
  5. "Characterizing Dzyaloshinskii Domain Walls in Asymmetric [Pt/Co/Ni/Ir]N Multi-Layers using Lorentz TEM."  Maxwell P Li, Marc De Graef, and Vincent Sokalski.  Microscopy and Microanalysis 24.S1 (2018)

More Members

Rob Coalson

Robert “Rob” Coalson received both his B.A. in physics and chemistry and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University. He was advised by Professor Martin Karplus who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Rob Coalson joined the University of Pittsburgh in 1986 after a two-year post doc at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is now a Professor of both Physics and Chemistry. He had won several awards including the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award, University of Pittsburgh in 2006 as well as numerous NSF grants to support his research.

Jennifer Laaser

Jennifer Laaser received her B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University and her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she developed new methods in ultrafast spectroscopy for investigating the structure and dynamics of molecules at interfaces. She then joined the University of Minnesota as a postdoctoral associate to work on the detailed understanding of micelle-based polyelectrolyte complexes for gene delivery applications. She finally joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh in August 2016, where she is now hard at work setting up a new research group straddling the boundary between physical chemistry, polymer physics, and polymeric materials.

David Pekker

David Pekker received his B.S. in Physics and B.A. in Mathematics from Rice University. During these years, he also carried out a research project at the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin and spent a semester abroad at the University of Bristol in the U.K, where he wrote his senior thesis. He then received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After a postdoc at Harvard then Caltech, he joined the Department of Physics of the University of Pittsburgh in 2014.