Ms Priyanka Manchanda (Roll No. D11048), a doctoral student at IIT Mandi has successfully defended her thesis on 7th Oct 2013. The research work reported in her thesis, "Magnetic properties of multilayers and some bulk alloys: An ab-initio study", has been carried out under the supervision of Dr. Arti Kashyap, an Associate Professor at IIT Mandi. Ms Priyanka will be awarded IIT Mandi’s first Ph.D. degree during the Institute’s first convocation to be held on 20th Oct 2013.
A brief description of her thesis is
"Magnetic multilayers consist of magnetic and non-magnetic materials and possess exotic scientific properties such as oscillatory interlayer exchange coupling and giant magneto-resistance. These magnetic multilayers are used in many applications such as ultrahigh density magnetic recording, spin valves and read head of hard disks. In this thesis, we have explored various magnetic thin films and multilayers to study the magnetization and magnetic anisotropy, that is, ease to change the magnetization direction. The main focus is to study the magnetic multilayer of 3d/4d and 3d/5d transition metal elements. Such systems exhibit high magnetic moment and magnetic anisotropy and therefore are useful in many applications. Further, control of magnetic properties with the application of external electric field is studied. The significant change in magnetic moment and magnetic anisotropy energy is observed in the presence of external electric field. Such systems can be used in electric-field controlled magnetic data storage and switching devices."