Professor Wenqing Liu RAEng/Leverhulme Trust Senior Fellow, FHEA, MIEEE, MInstP

I currently supervise the following student projects.

"Nano Spin Valves"
Magnetoresistance (MR) effect refers to the change in materials’ electrical resistance in response to an external magnetic field. Celebrated by the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics, the discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect has enabled revolutionary innovations in racetrack memory - the large effects seen for small fields at room temperature have paved the way for the next-generation high- density and non-volatile memory. To obtain GMR one must create an opportunity to reorient the electrons spin of two successive ferromagnetic metals (FMs) separated by a non-magnetic(N) thin layer, i.e. FM/N/FM, known as a ‘spin valve’. This project aims to design, test, and optimize the nano-scale spin valve devices. It will suit a student with interest in materials science and nano-electronics.

"Build a Quantum Sensor"
Quantum sensors leverage the extreme sensitivity of quantum systems to stimuli. This has enabled the measurement of weak signals in the most accurate and self-calibrated manner. One example is the liquid-helium-cooled superconducting quantum interference device or SQUID. Starting from laboratory instrumentation for material discovery at the earliest, they have now been widely integrated in biomedical applications such as magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetocardiography (MCG). This project aims to design, test, and optimise a SQUID. It will suit a student with interest in quantum technology and material science.