NanoPaleoMagnetism

For all those who prefer to digest NPM news in no more than 140 characters at a time, you can now follow us on Twitter (@NanoPaleoMag). Click here to see our twitter feed.

We are pleased to announce the availability of three fully funded PhD positions within the NPM group for 2014. The three projects are flexible in their scope, but are expected to focus on the following key aspects of the NPM project: 1) Rock magnetic studies of bulk samples using FORC diagrams, the development of methods for the quantitative analysis and simulation of FORC diagrams, and the application of FORC data to non-heating paleointensity studies; 2) application of transmission electron microscopy and electron holography to the study of magnetic properties at the nanometre scale; 3) application of X-ray imaging methods to study natural paleomagnetic signals at high spatial resolution. For more information download the ERC Studentship Description. For information on how to apply, go to the Earth System Science Doctoral Training Partnership (ESS-DTP) page. A direct link to the three ERC studentships page can be found here. Please contact Richard Harrison if you would like more information or to discuss the projects.

The nanopaleomagnetism group will be hosting this year’s annual get together of the UK paleo/geo/archeo/rock/mineral magnetism community. The meeting will take place in St. Catharine’s College on the 8th and 9th of January. Head over to the meeting page to find out details and submit an abstract! The meeting is a great opportunity for students of all kinds (undergrads, masters, PhD) to present their work in a friendly environment, and for the whole community to get together and talk about future directions and collaborations.

Much excitement this week as Lakeshore engineer Cosmin Radu arrives to start the installation of our PMC VSM/AGM system. This is the first instrument to be built 100% by Lakeshore since their acquisition of Princeton Measurement Corp. After a stirling effort by the Department’s technicians and support staff (thanks Chris, Charlie, Andrew and Martin) the old TEM lab was cleared out, re-painted and re-floored, with the water and power supplies coming online just in time for the installation to begin. With a bit of heavy lifting, the guts of the instrument are now in place and starting to be assembled. With any luck we should be obtaining our first hysteresis loops in the next day or two. We’ll keep you posted!

Greetings from the NPM experimental team, working hard at the PEEM beam line in BESSY. From left to right we have James Bryson, Julia Herrero-Albillos, Richard Harrison, Claire Nichols. After a few technical problems early on in the week, and the ever present battle against surface oxidation, things are going well and the data is starting to flow.

UPDATE: The beam time is coming to an end this weekend, with the team having put in a heroic effort on the night shift for the second week. By the look of the screenshots they have been sending me there should be some amazing data to analyse over the next few months. Keep going guys!

A sad day today as we bid a fond farewell to Nathan Church. Nate’s been in the group since 2006 as a PhD student, post doc and all round good egg. Nate’s last three years have been working on magnetism in meteorites, primarily through electron holography and more recently via scanning magnetic microscopy. We are only just scratching the surface of this exciting and complex field, and Nate’s work has enabled and inspired the future research directions of the group, laying the foundations of the NPM project. Now he is heading for bigger and better things as he starts a new post doc position with Suzanne McEnroe in Trondheim, Norway, where I am sure he will continue to do great things in the field of magnetism. We wish him all the best!

Preparations are well under way for our upcoming trip to the BESSYII Synchrotron in Berlin, with just one week to go before our beam time starts. James and Claire have been busy in the polishing labs, preparing a whole suite of meteorite samples for examination using X-ray Photoemission Electron Microscopy. This technique works by exciting electrons from the surface of a sample using circularly polarised X-rays. The intensity of electrons emitted depends on the projection of magnetisation along the incident X-ray direction. Under ideal conditions the spatial resolution of the method can reach 30 nm or less, with a field of view of up to 70 microns – perfect for examining the magnetic signals recorded at the nanoscale in meteoritic metal. Look out for updates as the first major experimental effort of the NPM project begins next week!

BESSYII – Here we come!

Thanks to Cosmin Radu from Lakeshore for sending us this teasing picture of our new VSM/AGM being packed up ready for shipping. We are preparing the lab right now to house the new facility, and we have a whole suite of samples lined up to start measuring from mid November…

The Nanopaleomag project will be well represented at the upcoming AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco 9-13th December 2013. Congratulations to James Bryson for landing his first invited talk ‘Synchrotron X-ray imaging of nanomagnetism in meteoritic metal’ which will presented at 2.55-3.10pm on Thursday December the 12th in the session “Rock magnetism: Beyond the State of the Art”. I will be presenting a poster entitled “Nanopaleomagnetism of Meteoritic Fe-Ni: the Potential for Time-Resolved Remanence Records within the Cloudy Zone” in the session “Understanding Planetary and Stellar Magnetic Fields” on Thursday December the 12th.

See you in San Francisco!

ATHLETICS is a set of forward modelling software tools to enable electron holography and Lorentz microscopy images to be quickly and easily simulated from a known micromagnetic model. The first incarnation of the software is now available for downloading from our new ATHLETICS page of the NanoPaleoMag site. Written by James Bryson and Richard Harrison, the software is primarily designed to allow holography images to be created from the output files of a micromagnetic simulation (currently compatible with the LLG micromagnetic simulator). However it can also be used to generate holography images from any magnetic model – and is how we created the NANOPALEOMAGNETISM banner image for this site! More features are planned for the future, including the possibility to simulate MFM, scanning magnetic microscopy and X-ray microscopy images, so stay tuned for updates!