WIN Distinguished Lecture - Professor Judith L. Macmanus-Driscoll: "New insights into nanomaterials with applications from high temperature superconductivity to insulators"

The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) presents a Distinguished Lecture by Professor Judith L. Macmanus-Driscoll, Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Lecture: 1:00-2:00pm

Reception: 2:00pm

​New insights into nanomaterials with applications from high temperature superconductivity to insulators

Abstract

Since the discovery of high temperature superconductivity in perovskite oxides in 1986, the unearthing of a huge range of physical phenomena in transition metal oxides (TMOs) has been nothing short of remarkable, e.g. new magnetics, ferroelectrics, multiferroics, semiconductors, transparent conductors, calorics, plasmonics, catalysts, ionic conductors. Nearly 150,000 papers were published on the topic ‘oxide+thin film’ in the last 10 years, not far from the number published on graphene in this same period. However, there are few applications of complex oxide thin films today. The underlying reason is the lack of understanding of the materials, in terms of their defective nature and in terms of how to engineer them to be perfect and strained optimally. Addressing the oxide electronics bottleneck is long overdue and requires nanoscale engineering, an area which has hardly been touched upon. This talk will discuss new insights into the materials nanoengineering from the author’s group, with examples given of unprecedented functional property enhancements in systems such as ferroelectrics, ferromagnetics and ionics. Examples will also be given of the author’s work in the area of oxide superconductor nanoengineering which has enabled applications to take off.

Professor Judith Driscoll

Judith Driscoll is a Professor in the Materials Science Dept. in Cambridge. Her research is in the area of oxide materials nanoengineering. She is also one of a handful of Long Term visiting staff members at Los Alamos National Lab, a position she has held for 12 years.

She is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the American Physical Society and Fellow of the Materials Research Society. She won the 2015 Institute of Physics Joule Medal for applications of physics and the 2015 inaugural Royal Academy of Engineering Armourers and Brasiers Medal for materials engineering leading to industrial applications.

Prof. Driscoll has more than 10 patents, several of which have been taken up by industry worldwide.  She consults for companies in the UK, the US, Korea, and Germany. She has over 350 research publications which have been cited nearly 10,000 times.

Prof. Driscoll is founding Editor-in-Chief of a relatively new (started in 2013) journal from the American Institute of Physics, APL Materials.