Prof. Stuart Parkin
Prof. Stuart Parkin’s research interests include oxide thin film heterostructures, high-temperature superconductors, and, magnetic thin film structures and spintronic materials and devices for advanced sensor, memory, and logic applications. Parkin’s discoveries in magneto-resistive thin film structures enabled a more than 1000 fold increase in the storage capacity of magnetic disk drives for which he was awarded the Millennium Technology Award from the Technology Academy Finland in 2014. Most recently, Parkin’s has proposed and demonstrated a novel storage-class memory device, “Racetrack Memory”, that is an innately 3D solid-state device with the storage capacity of a disk drive but with much higher performance and reliability. Parkin’s other major research interest is cognitive - bio-inspired materials - that could enable ultra-low power computing technologies. Parkin is a Fellow/ Member of several Academies, including: the Royal Society (London), National Academy of Sciences (USA), National Academy of Engineering (USA), German National Academy of Science - Leopoldina, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Indian Academy of Sciences, and TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. Parkin is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including, the American Physical Society International Prize for New Materials (1994), the Europhysics Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Physics (1997), and the 1999-2000 American Institute of Physics (AIP) Prize for Industrial Application of Physics. Parkin has received Honorary Doctorates from RWTH Aachen, Eindhoven University of Science and Technology, University of Regensburg, and University of Kaiserslautern. Most recently Parkin received the 2008 IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award for his work on MRAM, the 2009 IUPAP Magnetism Prize and Neel Medal for outstanding contributions to the science of magnetism, the APS 2012 David Adler Lectureship Award, the 2012 von Hippel Award from the Materials Research Society, the 2013 Swan Medal of the Institute of Physics (London), the Millennium Technology Prize (2014) and an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship − International Award for Research (2014).