Paul Crowell

My research focuses on spin dynamics and transport in ferromagnets and ferromagnet-semiconductor heterostructures. The first project examines the role of non-equilibrium effects in spin transport in hybrid ferromagnet/semiconductor structures. The materials development for this work is carried out in collaboration with Chris Palmstrom's group at UCSB, who is a collaborator in CSPIN. In recent years, we have succeeded in fabricating simple devices that can be used to test theories of spin transport across interfaces as well as of spin dynamics in the presence of spin-orbit and hyperfine interactions. Similar questions, particularly about the role of interfaces, appear in studies of spin transport in all-metallic heterostructures, a research project that is being carried out in collaboration with Professor Chris Leighton and supported by Seagate. In C-SPIN I am also working on spin-transport in graphene (in collaboration with Steve Koester) and (with Palmstrom) on integrating highly polarized materials into heterostructures with strong spin-orbit coupling.