Superconductivity & Magnetism » Superconductivity and Magnetism Group News

November 2025 - Tenam Cuauhtémoc awarded Best Poster Prize

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 10:26:00 GMT

Tenam Cuauhtémoc, has been awarded the Best Poster Prize at the 2025 ISIS Student Meeting, hosted by the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source (world-leading centre for research at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) Link opens in a new windowin Oxfordshire.

The poster, entitled “High Temperature Superconductivity in Nickelates”, presented the recent groundbreaking discovery of superconductivity in the lanthanum nickelate La₃Ni₂O₇, which exhibits superconductivity at 80 K under pressures exceeding 14 GPa. This finding establishes nickelates as a promising parallel to cuprates for gaining deeper insights into the general principles governing unconventional high temperature superconductivity, the exact mechanism of which remains elusive.

Tenam is in the first year of his PhD supervised by Professor Geetha Balakrishnan. Tenam is growing high quality single crystals of La₃Ni₂O₇ and La₄Ni₃O₁₀ by the optical floating zone and flux techniques. To date, he has characterised the magnetic and transport properties of La₃Ni₂O₇ at ambient pressures in-house. Tenam will use neutron scattering at central facilities such as ISIS to elucidate the role of defects in stabilising the charge density wave, a possible precursor to superconductivity. Furthermore, he plans to characterise the superconducting transition by measuring the magnetic, structural and transport properties under high pressures.

October 2025 - New PhD Student

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 23:00:00 GMT

The group welcomes Tenam Cuauhtémoc, a new PhD student who joins the group after completing his MPhys here at ��TV. Tenam will be working on nickelate superconductors with Geetha Balakrishnan and Dan Mayoh.

July 2025 - Welcome to Dr Brinda Kuthanazhi and Dr Nashra Pistawala

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 13:59:00 GMT

Welcome to Dr Nashra Pistawala and Dr Brinda Kuthanazhi who have just joined the Group as Post-Doctoral Research Assistants.

Nashra will be working on the highly success Single Crystal Growth at ��TV project led by Geetha Balakrishnan, with Daniel Mayoh, Oleg Petrenko, Paul Goddard and Martin Lees. The funding for this project has just been announced by the EPSRC.

Brinda will be studying topological materials in an EPSRC funded project shared between Professor Tom Lancaster at the University of Durham and Geetha Balakrishan here at the University of ��TV. The work at ��TV on this project also includes Daniel Mayoh.

March 2025 - EPSRC Grant - Controlling the formation and properties of topological magnetic phenomena

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 09:00:00 GMT

A project entitled Controlling the formation and properties of topological magnetic phenomena (EP/Z534067/1) has been funded by the EPSRC from March 2025.

The project is a joint award shared between Professor Tom Lancaster at the University of Durham and Prof. Geetha Balakrishan here at the University of ��TV.

The work at ��TV also includes Dr Daniel Mayoh and Dr Brinda Kuthanazi as a Research Fellow.

November 2024 - Welcome to Ewan Jewkes, our new technician

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 09:00:00 GMT

The Group welcomes Ewan Jewkes - our new technician. Ewan joins us, having just completed his degree in Physics for the University of Kent.

October 2024 - New PhD Student

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 08:00:00 GMT

The group welcomes Jonas Mikalauskas, a new PhD student who joins the group after completing his MPhys here at ��TV. Jonas will be working on exotic superconductors with Martin Lees.

July 2024 - PhD for Shroya Vaidya

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 08:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Dr Link opens in a new windowLink opens in aShroya Vaidya on completing his PhD project.

Shroya worked on quantum materials such as low-dimensional molecular magnets under the supervision of Paul Goddard.

Link opens in a new wi.

His thesis is entitled: Understanding electronic and magnetic properties of low-dimensional quantum materials (2024)

Shroya is now a post-doctoral fellow working in the Physics Department at the University of Birmingham with Dr Matt Coak.

May 2024 - PhD for George Wood

Wed, 01 May 2024 08:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Dr George WoodLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windo on successfully completing his PhD thesis. George was supervised by Geetha BalakrishnanLink opens in a new wi.

George's thesis is entitled: The magnetic order and excitations of GdRu₂Si₂.

George is now an Instrument Scientist for the LET spectrometer at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source.

May 2024 - PhD for Manisha Islam

Wed, 01 May 2024 08:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Manisha Islam Link opens in a new win on successfully defending her PhD thesis. Manisha’s work was supervised by Oleg PetenkoLink opens in a new windowOleg Petrenko.

Manisha used neutron scattering to study the physics of highly frustrated magnets - thesis title Single crystal neutron scattering studies of frustrated spin systems.

Manisha is now an Instrument Scientist based at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland.

October 2023 - Tom Orton heads to Holland

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 13:00:00 GMT

It's goodbye and good luck to Tom Orton our Group Technician, who is leaving ��TV University to take up a new role in the Netherlands.

Everyone in the Group would like to thank Tom for all his hard work over the last few years and to wish him, Olga, and Alex every success for their new life together in Holland.