The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Kristen Buchanan, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics, a five-year, $762,000 Early Career Award to study spin waves in nanoscale magnetic materials. Kristen is one of only 68 scientists nation-wide to receive this award in 2012 and she is the only recipient at Colorado State University this year.

Her work involves the study of dynamic excitations in ferromagnetic materials that play a key role in a range of intriguing physics phenomena. Her group will use light to probe dynamic processes in nanoscale magnets, also known as spin waves, through a process known as inelastic light scattering or Brillouin light scattering.  Spin dynamics in magnetic materials are important for the advancement of technology in spintronics devices, storage media and medical applications.

For more information see: http://www.news.colostate.edu/Release/6268