Public Talk – Shull – Spring 2018

Title: HOW MAGNETISM & NANOTECHNOLOGY HAVE CHANGED OUR LIVES

Speaker: Dr. Robert D. Shull

NIST Fellow, Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Abstract:

The magnetic properties of materials possessing some material dimension in the nanometer regime can be quite different from those commonly associated with conventional macro-scaled materials. As a consequence, over the past 20 years they have been steadily changing the world around us. They are responsible for computers now having multiple gigabyte hard disks, and thereby facilitated the spread of the internet and development of social media applications. They may comprise the next generation hard ferromagnets with vastly improved energy products needed for high efficiency power generation in addition to a whole new class of soft ferromagnets for low loss power transmission and efficient motors for electric automobiles. What is so different about these nano-materials and why has their impact been so large will be presented. Included will be descriptions of their unique domain kinetics, their “Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR)” effects, and their “Enhanced Magnetocaloric Effects (MCE).” And it will be obvious how our society has prospered because of this “Nanotechnology Revolution.”