UA Physics Professor Awarded NSF CAREER Award for Spintronics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The National Science Foundation selected a University of Alabama professor for a CAREER Award for her research on spintronics, which aims to use the spin and charge of electrons to develop highly functional and energy-efficient devices.

The CAREER Award is NSF’s most prestigious recognition of top-performing young scientists beginning their careers.

Dr. Claudia Mewes, assistant professor of physics and astronomy and a faculty member in UA’s Center for Materials for Information Technology, known as MINT, was awarded $500,000 for her research, which also includes an educational outreach component looking to increase the number of young girls interested in pursuing careers in science.

Mewes’s five-year study points at a critical gap in spintronics research. As devices have decreased in size, researchers have found that the properties of the materials used to make those devices change, causing them not to function as predicted.

Mewes’s research will combine different theories to close the gap between materials design and device performance with the ultimate goal of finding materials that work best in those environments.

“Today, we mostly use the charge of electrons in our computers,” Mewes said. “The charge is used to store information and perform logic operations. But an electron also has a quantum mechanical property, called spin, which one can use to make devices more functional and more energy-efficient.

“For the next generation of spintronic devices, we really need a better fundamental understanding of the involved magnetic properties within small devices,” she said. “This grant allows me to look at not only materials, but also at the complicated interplay of different material parameters and their modifications in devices on these small length scales.

“I think the project can help the whole research area to proceed further because I think a better fundamental understanding is of paramount importance for a widespread adoption of spintronic technologies.”

As with all CAREER grants, Mewes’s project also includes an educational component. Inspired by her work with Women in Physics and Astronomy, a UA-based group which Mewes, together with physics and astronomy faculty Drs. Dawn Williams and Preethi Nair, organizes to encourage women pursuing careers in science, Mewes proposed hosting events for female high-school students interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers.

Mewes hopes to host a large group of female high-school students at the University annually for a day of hands-on experiments and discussion. She also plans to partner with Science in Motion physics specialist Julie Covin and Physics Teacher Education Coalition’s teacher-in-residence Penni Wallace for these events.

“I think a lot of young girls don’t think about careers in science because they don’t typically see women in science,” Mewes said. “I also think if they had role models and could see women doing work in those disciplines, they might consider working in science themselves.”

Mewes said being part of the MINT center will be a crucial component of her research. Because the center focuses on developing new materials to advance data storage, combining 30 faculty members in seven different academic departments for interdisciplinary research, Mewes said she will be able to fine-tune her theories more quickly by collaborating with those faculty members.

“Without such a strong, collaborative research group like the MINT center, I would have to publish my research first before getting any feedback,” she said. “MINT provides a much faster loop that one can use to fine-tune the theory, have someone else perform experiments, get some results and go back and model it a little bit differently.”

The College of Arts and Sciences is UA’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships, Truman Scholarships, and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.