Professor Sam Ladak – Lab Leader

I completed my PhD from the University of Exeter in 2006. The project involved the fabrication and characterisation of magnetic tunnel junctions. After this I carried out a year in industry at Seagate technology, designing and prototyping magnetic read-heads. In 2007 I decided to go back to academia and took up postdoctoral positions at the University of York and then Imperial College where I remained for four years.

In 2012, I was awarded a personal chancellors (SBP) fellowship within the School of Physics and Astronomy with the aim of establishing a research group within the emerging field of 3D nanomagnetism. Today, the focus of my work is upon 3D magnetic nanostructure fabrication and characterisation using non-linear optical techniques.

Over the past several years I have secured > £4M of external (EPSRC) funding as well as small grants from the Royal Society, Welsh Crucible and Leverhulme Trust.

A full list of my publications and citations can be found here (Scholar) and here (Scopus)

Dr Joseph Askey

My name is Joe, I am currently postdoc within the 3D Nanomagnetism lab working upon fabrication and characterisation of structures for thermoelectrics, 3D magnetic nanowires and artificial spin-ice. 

Vani Lanka

Hello! My name is Vani, I have recently graduated with a Masters in Physics at Cardiff University where my final year project was to characterise ferromagnetic materials under MOKE magnetometry. My research will focus on fabricating and measuring 3D Artificial Spin-ice.

Yetian Wang

Yetian is a PhD student studying domain wall motion in 3D magnetic nanowires. 

Mathew Hague

Mathew is a PhD student working upon 3D artificial spin-ice.

Alex Roberts

Alex is a PhD student working upon 3D artificial spin-ice.

Alumni

Dr Arjen Van Den Berg

Arjen was a PhD student and postdoc in the group, making important contributions in the field of 3D artificial spin-ice. 

Alaa Hejazi

Alaa completed her PhD under Dr Sam Ladak in 2024, working upon magnetic vortex spin textures. She has now moved back to Saudi Arabia to become a full time academic. 

Edward Harding

Completed his PhD under Dr Sam Ladak in 2024, working upon fabrication of 3DASI systems for synchrotron measurement.  

Matthew Hunt

Completed his PhD under Dr Sam Ladak in 2018, working on the fabrication and measurement of 3D magnetic nanostructures. He continued to work with Dr Ladak as a postdoctoral research associate  on an EPSRC funded project. Matthew now works upon the development of medical devices. 

Andrew May

Andrew was an EPSRC funded PhD student working upon the fabrication and measurement of 3D artificial spin-ice structures. Andrew now works in data science.