Professor Steve Bramwell

Research summary

See Professor Bramwell’s latest Research Highlights here:

• Computer simulations reveal universal increase in electrical conductivity
• Magnetic monopole currents observed

Steve Bramwell graduated from Oxford with a degree in Chemistry in 1984, then held positions in Oxford and Grenoble, before joining UCL in 1997. Formerly a Professor of Physical Chemistry, he is now in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the London Centre for Nanotechnology at UCL.

Professor Bramwell’s main interest is in statistical mechanics, as investigated by neutron scattering on carefully chosen magnetic materials (“model magnets”).

Alongside his 1997 discovery and naming of spin ice (with MJ Harris), he is known for his calculation of β = 0.23, a key critical exponent for magnetic films (with PCW Holdsworth, 1993) and a probability distribution named after him (the Bramwell-Holdsworth-Pinton Distribution, 1998). He was awarded the 2010 Holweck Prize of the Britsh Institue of Physics and the French Societe de Physique to recognise his work on model magnets, and he was the co-recipient of the 2012 European Physical Society CMD Europhysics Prize for the discovery of magnetic monopoles in spin ice. His discovery of “magnetricity” in spin ice was reconginsed by the Times Higher Research project of the Year, 2010 and he appeared on The Times’s 2010 list of the 100 most important UK scientists. He presented the 2012 Wohlfarth Lecture of the IOP

Keywords:

Magnetricity, Model Magnets, Spin Ice, Spin Models

Links:

• Publications