Axel Hoffmann, currently a senior group leader in magnetic films at Argonne National Laboratory, will start in the Fall of 2019.
Dr. Hoffmann received his Ph.D. in 1999 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory before joining Argonne National Laboratory as a staff scientist in 2001. His research accomplishments encompass a variety of magnetism-related subjects, including magnetic heterostructures, spin transport and magnetization dynamics in novel geometries, and biomedical applications of magnetism. Dr. Hoffmann is a pioneering investigator of spin Hall effects, which have given rise to an important new field of materials physics, now known as spin-orbitronics. One of his key contributions was to develop a new metrology approach, which since has been adopted by research groups world-wide. His work enabled detailed comparison experiment and the predictions of theory. Dr. Hoffmann’s recent work has also been instrumental in the emergence of two new sub-fields of magnetism research: antiferromagnetic spintronics and room-temperature magnetic skyrmions.
Hoffmann is a fellow of the American Vacuum Society, the American Physical Society, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has more than 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, and three magnetism-related U.S. patents. Dr. Hoffmann is part of the inaugural class of the President’s Distinguished Faculty Recruitment Program, a new initiative launched by the University of Illinois System to add more world-class faculty.
Another Distinguished Faculty Hire, Dr. Qing Cao, joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Research Laboratory in the Fall of 2018.