Luc Thomas  Research Staff Member  IBM Almaden Research Center

Dr Thomas earned his Ph.D. in physics at the Universite Joseph Fourier (Grenoble, France) in 1997. His research work at the Laboratoire Louis Neel in Grenoble involved the study of the classical and quantum properties of magnetic nanostructures at low temperatures. As part of this work, he carried out one of the first experimental demonstrations of quantum tunneling of the magnetization in a magnetic system, in the molecular crystal Mn12-acetate.

In 1998, Dr Thomas joined Stuart Parkin's group as a post-doc. He studied several basic problems related to MRAM devices, such as the magnetization reversal of sub-micron MRAM cells, the exchange coupling between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic layers (i..e. the exchange bias phenomenon), and the dipolar interactions between magnetic layers.

From 2000 to 2003, Dr Thomas worked as a Charge de Recherche in the CNRS at the Laboratoire de Magnetisme et d'Optique in Versailles, France. He studied the properties of oxide thin films fabricated by pulsed laser deposition, in particular, nickel-oxide thin films exchange-coupled with permalloy layers