Leveraging Ferromagnetism in Superconducting Electronics

This is a fully funded PhD scholarship opportunity at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, offered through the Paihau-Robinson Research Institute and School of Chemical and Physical Sciences. The project, led by Prof. Ben Ruck and Dr Simon Granville, focuses on the incorporation of rare-earth nitride materials in superconducting electronics, especially to fill the gap in available cryogenic memory technology. The candidate will undertake fundamental materials science and device research, encompassing experimental and computational studies of the electronic and magnetic properties of the rare-earth nitrides and the design, modelling, and fabrication of memory structures and circuits with applications in superconducting and quantum computing. The research aims to investigate the fundamental properties of rare-earth nitrides (RENs), a class of materials including many intrinsic magnetic semiconductors, optimize the growth of the RENs towards technologically useful properties, and incorporate these materials in device designs for superconducting and quantum electronics technologies. The successful candidate will grow thin films of rare-earth nitrides and fabricate devices based on these materials, use a suite of experimental techniques to assess the quality of the films and devices, understand the results by developing and applying physical models of these novel systems, and use this understanding to drive further development of the materials and devices toward application.