University of Minnesota

Dr. Palmstrøm is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Materials Departments at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his B.Sc. in physics and electronic engineering and Ph.D. in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Leeds. After being a Lecturer in Norway and a Research Associate at Cornell, he joined Bellcore as a Member of Technical Staff in 1985. From 1994-2007 he was a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. In 2004, he became the Amundson Chair Professor. In 2007 he joined the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research includes contributions in the field of epitaxial growth of combinations of dissimilar materials with the emphasis on tailoring electronic and magnetic properties by controlling interfaces at the atomic level. He was the first to report epitaxial growth of Heusler alloys on III-V semiconductors [1]. In collaboration with Paul Crowell, he demonstrated high efficiency spin injection into GaAlAs using epitaxial Fe [2] and epitaxial Heusler alloy contacts [3]. He showed the importance of the interface ordering [4] and the semiconductor band structure [5] on the spin transport, and they demonstrated the first fully electrical scheme for achieving spin injection, transport and detection in a single device [6] Currently he has SRC sponsored research on epitaxial Heusler alloy based spin torque device materials. He is the author of over 225 publications, including five review chapters and research monographs. Dr. Palmstrøm is a Fellow of AVS APS, and MRS.