We are an experimental condensed matter physics group headed by Eric Arturo Montoya in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah.
Our research focuses on magnetic materials and spin physics. We have expertise in sample growth and device nanofabrication. Our group studies the impact of spin-orbit interaction on magnetization and spin dynamics, spin transport, and spin torques. We are also interested in harnessing these effects for creating novel spintronic and spin-orbitronic devices.
April 2025
Noah is awarded the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF)!
March 2025
Eric is awarded the NSF CAREER award! CAREER: Self-generated spin-orbit torques driven by universal Hall effects.
Gbenga presents his work Chirality-induced copolymer blend with small chiral molecules at the APS Global Physics Summit in Anehiem.
January 2025
Our paper Anomalous Hall spin current drives self-generated spin–orbit torque in a ferromagnet is out now in Nature Nanotechnology.
Prakash presents his work Antidamping Orbital Torque Driven by Orbital Rashba Edelstein Effect in Co/Pt/CuOx at the 2025 MMM-Intermag Joint Meeting in New Orleans.
May 2024
Congratulations to Jonathan and Noah who have been accepted for excellent undergraduate student summer research opportunities! Jonathan will be contributing to the CU Boulder STROBE program and Noah will be contributing to the Caltech Caltech WAVE Fellows program.
April 2024
Noah wins P&A Thomas J. Parmley Scholarship for Outstanding Undergraduate Students.
Jonathan wins P&A Outstanding Undergraduate Research in Condensed Matter, Biophysics, or Physics Education research award.
Eric gives Colloquium Self-generated spin-orbit torques at the Department of Physics, Indiana University–Perdue University Indianapolis.
March 2024
Eric presents Condensed Matter/Quantum Information Seminar The Anomalous Hall Nano-Oscillator at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University of Southern California.
February 2024
Eric presents Colloquium Anomalous Hall torque at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside .
January 2024
Eric gives talk for the Online Spintronics Seminar.
New preprint Self-generated spin-orbit torque driven by anomalous Hall current available. This work demonstrates the discovery of a self-generated spin-orbit torque associated with the anomalous Hall effect that, together with the spin Hall torque and planar Hall torque, forms a triad of universal Hall-type torques.
August 2023
Awarded as CO-PI $900k National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation (NSF-MRI) grant for the “Acquisition of an integrated physical property measurement system for the electrical, optical, and magnetic characterization of materials”
July 2023
Easy-plane spin Hall oscillator published in Communications Physics
April 2023
Noah wins P&A Recognition of Academic Excellence award.
March 2023
Prakash wins 2nd place poster award at the U of U Physics and Astronomy Graduate Research Symposium!
August 2022
Robust Spin Injection via Thermal Magnon Pumping in Antiferromagnet/Ferromagnet Hybrid Systems published in Physical Review Research