February 16, 2006
UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
Office of External Communication
Media Contact: Lisa Merkl
713/743-8192
lkmerkl@uh.edu
NEW MEMORY STORAGE DEVICES ON HORIZON
WITH UH STUDENT’S AWARD-WINNING WORK - Faster
Access to Music, Movies Possible with Developments
in Solid State Physics
A University of Houston student’s award-winning
research in solid state physics may one day provide faster,
more efficient access to data, music, and movies in such
hand-held devices as MP3 players and cellular phones.
A
third-year graduate student in physics at UH, Clarina de
la Cruz recently captured first prize in the worldwide
student
competition of the 50th Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
Conference. This event annually brings together scientists
and engineers from the world over who are interested in
recent developments in all branches of fundamental and
applied magnetism. The student competition recognizes
research excellence at the graduate level, with the winner
receiving a $1,000 fellowship and facing stiff competition
from such institutions as the University of Nijmegen (Netherlands),
Stanford University, and Johns Hopkins University.
“I considered it a major achievement simply to
be chosen as one of the five finalists,” de la
Cruz said. “I did not expect to win the competition
because of the strength of my competitors who attend
very prestigious universities.”
Working under the supervision of Paul C.W.
Chu, the TLL
Temple Chair of Science, physics professor, and founding
director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the
University of Houston (TcSUH), de la Cruz began her own
research on the magneto-electric effects in multiferroic
compounds after joining Chu’s High-Pressure Low-Temperature
Group at TcSUH in January 2004. These new materials
bear the potential for the future development of a new
type of memory storage device and eventually may be found
in any computer as a magneto-electric hard drive or for
speeding up hand-held devices.
“Clarina is a highly motivated, bright student with an unusual experimental skill,” Chu said. “This
honor is a reflection of her dedication and hard work.
In a very short period of time after joining our group,
she has developed a high precision technique under the
guidance of Professor Bernd Lorenz and obtained data that
others cannot in the exciting emerging subfield of solid
state physics – multiferroics. She can be very proud
of her achievement.”
As a student of Lorenz, the TcSUH research associate professor
under whom de la Cruz is working, her understanding of solid
state physics deepened significantly, and her interests quickly
spread from superconductivity to magnetism and ferroelectricity – some
of the most fundamental phenomena in condensed matter physics.
“The magneto-electric interaction present in these materials allows for a change of the electric polarization by an external magnetic field or the control of the magnetization using electric fields,” said Lorenz. “This
cross correlation of magnetic and electric properties provides
the physical basis for future new developments in memory
storage. In magneto-electric memory, media bytes will be
written by magnetic write heads, as realized in any standard
hard drive, but the stored information can be read electrically
by detecting the subtle changes of the electric polarization
induced in the magnetic write process.”
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and service with more than 35,000 students.
For more information about TcSUH, visit the center’s Web site at http://www.tcsuh.uh.edu/.
For more information about UH, visit the university’s Newsroom at http://www.uh.edu/newsroom/.
To receive UH science news via e-mail, visit http://www.uh.edu/admin/media/sciencelist.html. 
