New Humboldt Fellow at the Peter Grünberg Institute
22 May 2014
Within the framework of a research fellowship awarded jointly by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Brazilian funding agency CAPES, theoretical physicist Dr. Filipe Guimarães took up his new position at the Peter Grünberg Institute in March.
Now working in the Young Investigators Group “Functional Nanoscale Structure Probe and Simulation Laboratory” (Funsilab) in the division Quantum Theory of Materials (PGI-1/IAS-1), the 31- year-old Brazilian will investigate spin dynamics in nanostructures, in particular how pure dynamical spin currents are created, controlled and propagated through materials using methods from theoretical physics. Spin currents could be used in the computers of the future to transport and calculate information faster and more energy-efficiently than today.
Guimarães has been working on this subject since his Master’s degree. He received his PhD, supervised by Prof. Roberto Bechara Muniz, from the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Brazil, in 2011. His next appointment was at the University of California, Irvine, USA, with Prof. Douglas Mills - one of the most renowned physicists in the area of spin wave research, who unfortunately passed away in 2012. In Irvine, Guimarães worked on the inclusion of the spin-orbit coupling in his calculations using the so-called tight-binding formalism, with the aim of studying and describing the Spin Hall Effect and Inverse Spin Hall Effect.
Mills was the first to suggest that Guimarães should continue his work with Dr. Samir Lounis' group in Jülich to learn its methods and theory in the context of dynamical spin-excitations from first-principles. Guimarães’ main objective in Jülich is to describe spin currents from thin films down to clusters and single atoms on surfaces, implementing a full ab-initio approach (by means of the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker Green function method).
Guimarães plans to spend two years at Forschungszentrum Jülich. He is married and has two sons.
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