For students

Supervisor: dr hab. inż. Daniel Gnida

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Description:

The aim of the doctoral project is to develop a consistent and experimentally verified description of quantum electron transport effects in disordered ferromagnetic thin films.

Although quantum transport corrections in nonmagnetic materials are well established, their manifestation in ferromagnetic thin films remains ambiguous. In particular, many experimentally observed low-temperature electrical resistance anomalies have so far been interpreted within the framework of the two-channel Kondo (2CK) effect, despite the fact that similar transport behavior may also arise from weak localization (WL) mechanisms and electron–electron interactions (EEI). The project aims to resolve these controversies through systematic investigations of electron transport coefficients — electrical resistance, magnetoresistance, and the Hall effect — as functions of temperature, magnetic field, and film thickness.

Another objective of the project is the identification of the dominant mechanisms of electron dephasing through low-field magnetoresistance studies and their correlation with the magnetic properties of the material, in particular exchange splitting, magnetic anisotropy, and magnon excitations. Special attention will also be devoted to the role of spin–orbit interaction, which governs the transition between weak localization (WL) and weak antilocalization (WAL), and affects spin relaxation as well as electron–electron interaction channels. To this end, materials with a controlled strength of spin–orbit coupling, achieved through appropriate doping, will be investigated, and theoretical models incorporating spin splitting and spin relaxation mechanisms will be verified experimentally.