Kai Liu

Professor Kai Liu has joined UC San Diego's Center for Memory and Recording Research as an affiliated faculty member. Professor Liu joined U. C. Davis in 2001. His research interest is in experimental studies of nanostructured materials for nanomagnetism, spin-transport, and advanced energy explorations. Due to their intricate nanostructures, extremely small length scales, rich surfaces and interfaces, low dimensionality, and interplay among constituents, nanostructured materials often exhibit new and enhanced properties over their bulk counterparts. Additionally, these novel properties can be tailored through extra degrees of freedom, such as structure and material. Professor Liu is particularly interested in magnetic nanostructures where the electron spin coherence may be preserved and exploited, providing a spin-based vision for electronics of the future. This is of critical importance as downscaling of CMOS-based devices face huge uncertainties regarding power consumption and dissipation, resulting in a catastrophic power crisis that has stalled progress across all scales. Spin-based applications represent potentially paradigm-shifting innovations and transformative opportunities that can address the grand challenges of our time.

• Nanosynthesis of artificially structured materials
• Vortices in nanomagnets
• Spin-transport in multilayered nanowires and other systems
• Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy
• Exchange bias
• Si-based half-metals

A list of publications can be found here.

A list of group members can be found here.