The IUPAP Young Scientist Medal is the most prestigious award received by a young researcher working on magnetism. The award recognises the original experiments performed by Dr Marius V. Costache related with spin pumping and the magnon-drag effect. He will give an invited lecture after receiving the Medal during the 20th International Conference on Magnetism held in Barcelona.
Dr Marius V. Costache, Ramon y Cajal post-doctoral researcher at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), has been awarded with the prestigious IUPAP Young Scientist Medal in the field of Magnetism. This Medal is awarded every three years by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) to two laureates after a worldwide selection of candidates and aimed at young researchers with excellent research potential.
Dr Costache’s research career started with the PhD at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) with Prof Bart J. van Wees, where he developed new methods to induce and detect on-chip ferromagnetic resonance. His postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with Prof Jagadeesh S. Moodera focused on superconducting electronics. Then he started collaborating with ICREA Prof Sergio O. Valenzuela, Group Leader of the ICN2 Physics and Engineering of Nanodevices Group. In 2009, Dr Costache joined this research group, first as Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral researcher and since 2012 as a Ramón y Cajal researcher.
The IUPAP Young Scientist Medal in the field of Magnetism recognises the original experiments performed by Dr Costache. During his still short career he has managed to contribute significantly to the field of spintronics, which studies the spin of the electron and its associated magnetic moment. His experiments include the electrical detection of spin pumping, which offers novel insight into the fundamental physics of spintronics and could lead to new technological applications, such as memory storage devices.
On the other hand, the award also recognises the development of new methods to excite and detect on-chip ferromagnetic resonance and new detection scheme for the magnon-drag effect, a work Dr Costache developed at ICN2. A magnon is a collective excitation of the electrons' spin and understanding it is crucial to develop devices able to transport information based on spintronics principles. Dr Costache’s work demonstrates a conceptually new thermopile-like device that allow the properties of magnons to be measured independently of the thermoelectric contribution of electrons and phonons, providing crucial information for understanding the physics of electron-magnon interactions, magnon dynamics and thermal transport.
The award was presented in July 7 2015 during the 20th International Conference on Magnetism in Barcelona (Spain). As part of the award, Dr Costache will give an invited lecture. Dr. Masamitsu Hayashi, from the National Institute for Materials Science (Japan), is the second awardee announced during the ceremony.