Yu Li's page

A postdoc @Fudan Uni, China

Yu Li's page

About Yu Li

Hi there, welcome to my page!

Overview of my career

  • 2013 - 2017   BEng (Materials Physics), University of Science and Technology Beijing, China
  • 2016 - 2017   Research internship, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMECAS), China
  • 2017 - 2021   PhD (Magnetism and spintronics), University of Manchester, United Kingdom
  • 2022 - now   Postdoc, Frontier Institute of Chip and System (FICS), Fudan University, China

My undergraduate (2013 - 2017)

I obtained my BEng degree in Materials Physics from the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB), China. During my final year, I was fortunate to participate a captivating research internship project at the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMECAS). I studied the modeling of the switching mechanisms for an emerging memory device known as resistive random access memory (RRAM)[1], under the expert supervision of Prof. Shibing Long. The experience provided me with invaluable insights and significantly heightened my interest in scientific research.

Thus began my academic journey.

My PhD (2017 - 2021)

I commenced my academic journey by pursuing a PhD degree in the Skyrmionics team within the Nano Engineering and Spintronic Technologies (NEST) Group at the University of Manchester, UK (2017 – 2022). My studies were funded by the School of Computer Science Kilburn Overseas Fee Bursary and CSC scholarship. My PhD supervisors are Prof. Jim Miles and Dr. Christoforos Moutafis. My research primarily focused on theoretical & computational studies of magnetic objects, with emphasis on three main dimensions:

  1. Dynamics of nanoscale magnetic objects [2][3], including magnetic skyrmion, antiskyrmion, and chiral bobber, within the bulk magnet and multilayer thin films;
  2. Their thermal stabilities and minimum energy paths to other possible equilibrium states[4];
  3. Electronic transport properties of different objects aimed at future detection and applications[3:1][4:1].

Furthermore, I delved into various intriguing research topics such as the roughness effect on skyrmion stability[5], ferromagnetic resonance of RKKY-coupled[6] or surface-pinned magnetic materials[7], skyrmion-based devices for emerging applications such as neuromorphic computing[8][9][10]. The successful completion of these projects was made possible through board collaborations with talented people in our NEST group@UoM, ETH Zurich, Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), and LMU München, etc.
Link to my PhD thesis.

My postdoc (2022 - now)

After completing my PhD, I started working as a postdoc at Fudan University. My current research interest continues to focuse on device modeling, with a slight shift towards exploring the potential of ferroelectric materials. The topics cover the fundamental polarization switching mechanism, defect generation & migration during electrical cyclings, and circuit-level abstraction of ferroelectric phenomena for SPICE simulators. Particularly, my SPICE models highlight the interplay between ferroelectric & dielectric layers, as well as Hafnia-ferroelectric-based devices (eg., FeCap and FTJ) and transistors (eg. MOSFET and IGZO TFT).

As of July 2024, I have published over 20 papers in academic conferences & journals, including IEEE Symposium VLSI Technology & Circuits, IEEE International Memory Workshop, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Physical Review B/Research/Applied, Small, and Nature Communications. Among these, I am the first/corresponding author on 10 papers. My Google Scholar citations are above 470 with an h-index of 8.

Contact me

  1. Y. Li, M. Zhang, S. Long*, J. Teng, Q. Liu, H. Lv, E. Miranda, J. Suñé, and M. Liu*, Investigation on the conductive filament growth dynamics in resistive switching memory via a universal Monte Carlo simulator, Scientific Reports 7, 11204 (2017). ↩︎

  2. Y. Li*, L. Pierobon, M. Charilaou, H.-B. Braun, N. R. Walet, J. F. Löffler, J. J. Miles, and C. Moutafis*, Tunable terahertz oscillation arising from Bloch-point dynamics in chiral magnets, Physical Review Research 2, 033006 (2020). ↩︎

  3. Y. Li*, S. Mankovsky, S. Polesya, H. Ebert, and C. Moutafis*, Magnetic Bloch-point hopping in multilayer skyrmions and associated emergent electromagnetic signatures, Physical Review B (letter) 104, L140409 (2021). ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. Y. Li*, Y. Zang, R. Chen, and C. Moutafis*, Tailoring energy barriers of Bloch-point-mediated transitions between topological spin textures, Physical Review B 109, 024418 (2024). ↩︎ ↩︎

  5. J. Vijayakumar, Y. Li, D. Bracher, C. W. Barton, M. Horisberger, T. Thomson, J. Miles, C. Moutafis, F. Nolting, and C. A. F. Vaz*, Meronlike spin textures in in-plane-magnetized thin films, Physical Review Applied 14, 054031 (2020). ↩︎

  6. H. J. Waring*, Y. Li, C. Moutafis, I. J. Vera-Marun, and T. Thomson*, Magnetization dynamics in synthetic ferromagnetic thin films, Physical Review B 104, 014419 (2021). ↩︎

  7. H. J. Waring, Y. Li, N. A. B. Johansson, C. Moutafis, I. J. Vera-Marun, and T. Thomson*, Exchange stiffness constant determination using multiple-mode FMR perpendicular standing spin waves, Journal of Applied Physics, 133, 063901 (2023). ↩︎

  8. R. Chen*, C. Li, Y. Li, J. J. Miles, G. Indiveri, S. Furber, V. F. Pavlidis, and C. Moutafis*, Nanoscale room-temperature multilayer skyrmionic synapse for deep spiking neural networks, Physical Review Applied 14, 014096 (2020). ↩︎

  9. R. Chen*, Y. Li, V. F. Pavlidis, and C. Moutafis*, Skyrmionic interconnect device, Physical Review Research 2, 043312 (2020). ↩︎

  10. R. Chen*, Y. Li, W. Griggs, Y. Zang, V. F. Pavlidis, and C. Moutafis* Encoding and multiplexing information signals in magnetic multilayers with fractional skyrmion tubes, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 15(28), 34145 (2023). ↩︎

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