Barry Zink

Professor

Faculty

barry.zink@du.edu

303-871-3025 (Office)

http://mysite.du.edu/~bzink2

Personal

Physics Building, 2112 E. Wesley Ave. Denver, CO 80208

What I do

Heat, charge, and spin flow in nanostructures and novel materials.

Professional Biography

Barry completed his PhD at UC San Diego in 2002, and has earned honors including the Piercy Distinguished Visiting Professorship (U. Minnesota), the NSF CAREER award and the NRC Post-doc. Current projects he and his team of undergraduate, and graduate researchers are exploring range from developing new materials for small-scale cooling and energy conversion to understanding how spin travels in disordered magnetic systems. His group's research has to date been supported by the National Science Foundation (DMR and EECS), the Department of Energy (NNSA), the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative, the Petroleum Research Fund, and others.

Degree(s)

Ph.D., Materials Science & Engineering, University of California, 2002
MS, Physics, University of California, 1998
BS, Physics, University of California, 1996

Professional Affiliations

American Physical Society
Materials Research Society
Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Magnetics Society

Media Sources

Testing DIY hail protection for your car (with a high school baseball team)

Research

Experimental condensed matter and materials physics, focusing on thermal, electronic, and thermoelectric properties of nanostructures and novel materials. Current projects include: thermal transport, thermoelectric effects, and spin transport in ferromagnetic thin films and nanostructures; materials for spintronics and spin current detection; thermal transport in nanostructures and hybrid organic semiconductors for thermoelectric applications; heat capacity and thermal conductance in amorphous dielectrics, metals and superconductors below 1 Kelvin; and growth and characterization of thermoelectric amorphous semiconductor alloy films. Applications of interest range from energy harvesting to nanoelectronics to gamma-ray detectors for nuclear security.

Key Projects

CAREER: Electrons, Phonons, and Magnons in Nanostructures and Novel Materials
Long-distance spin transport in disordered insulators and low-damping metals
Thermal Gradient Engineering For Spin Injection and Transport in Metallic Nanomagnetic Switches and Sensors

Featured Publications

Wesenberg, D., Liu, T., Balzar, D., Wu, M., & Zink, B. L. (2017). Long-distance spin transport in a disordered magnetic insulator. Nature Physics. Retrieved from https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/nphys4175?r3_referer=nature

Avery, A. D., Zhou, B. H., Lee, J., Lee, E. -S., Miller, E. M., Ihly, R., et al. (2016). Tailored Semiconducting Carbon Nanotube Networks with Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties. Nature Energy, 1, 16033. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201633

Avery, A. D., Matt, P. R., & Zink, B. L. (2012). Observation of the planar Nernst effect in permalloy and nickel thin films with in-plane thermal gradients. Physical Review Letters, 109, 196602.

Hojem, A., Wesenberg, D., & Zink, B. L. (2016). Thermal spin injection and interface insensitivity in permalloy/aluminum metallic non-local spin valves. Physical Review B, 94, 024426. Retrieved from http://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.024426

Avery, A. D., Mason, S. J., Bassett, D., Wesenberg, D., & Zink, B. L. (2015). Thermal and electrical conductivity of approximately 100 nm Permalloy, Al, Ni, Co, and Cu films and examination of the Wiedemann-Franz Law. Physical Review B, 92, 214410.

Presentations

Zink, B. L. (2018). Spin Transport in Disordered Materials via Antiferromagnetic Correlations. March Meeting of the American Physical Society. Los Angeles, CA: American Physical Society.

Zink, B. L. (2017). A new (dis)order in spintronics? Long-distance spin transport in amorphous magnetic insulators. Condensed Matter Physics Seminar. Santa Cruz, CA: UC Santa Cruz.

Zink, B. L. (2018). Materials for Spin Transport: Order, Disorder, Distances and Heat. 4th PRSE Center for Advanced Magnetics Workshop. Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University.

Awards

National Science Foundation CAREER Award, NSF, Division of Materials Research, Condensed Matter Physics Program
George T Piercy Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Minnesota
National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Outstanding Referee, American Physical Society: Physical Review Journals
Outstanding Referee, Review of Scientific Instruments