Dr Clifford Hicks PhD

Dr Clifford Hicks

School of Physics and Astronomy
Reader in Condensed Matter Physics

Contact details

Telephone
+49(0)3514646 3227
Email
c.hicks.1@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Physics and Astronomy
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Clifford Hicks is a Reader in Condensed Matter Physics.

Dr. Hicks’ group studies correlated electron systems such as superconductors and magnetically ordered compounds. He is a specialist in instrumentation, and his group works at the intersection of basic science and new, custom engineering, in order to pursue open scientific questions as directly as possible. He is famous in particular for development of methods for strain tuning, which has led seven Science- and Nature-group publications since 2014, the founding of a spin-out company, Razorbill Instruments, and a large number of collaborations, including with groups in Germany, Japan, and the United States.

Dr. Hicks believes that fundamental science is at its core an activity done to maintain human curiosity and lust for adventure and excellence. Through pursuit of fundamental, beautiful scientific questions, members of his group gain a wide range of useful engineering skills. Good scientists should never be afraid to build themselves the equipment that they need! This is part of the adventure.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Applied Physics, Stanford University, U.S.A., 2009
  • B.S. in Physics, California Institute of Technology, U.S.A., 2000.

Teaching

• Daniel O. Brodsky (U. St. Andrews, 2015)

• Mark E. Barber (U. St. Andrews, 2017)

• Jack M. Bartlett (U. St. Andrews, 2019)

• Fabian Jerzembeck (Technical University of Dresden, 2020)

• Shreenanda Ghosh (Technical University of Dresden, 2021)

Other activities

Co-founder and technical advsior for Razorbill Instruments, an engineering company based in Edinburgh, U.K., 2014 

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Abarca Morales, E, Siemann, GR, Zivanovic, A, Murgatroyd, PAE, Marković, I, Edwards, B, Hooley, CA, Sokolov, DA, Kikugawa, N, Cacho, C, Watson, MD, Kim, TK, Hicks, CW, Mackenzie, AP & King, PDC 2023, 'Hierarchy of Lifshitz Transitions in the Surface Electronic Structure of Sr2RuO4 under Uniaxial Compression', Physical Review Letters, vol. 130, no. 9, 096401. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.096401

Zuniga-Cespedes, BE, Manna, K, Noad, HML, Yang, P, Nicklas, M, Felser, C, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2023, 'Observation of an anomalous Hall effect in single-crystal Mn3Pt', New Journal of Physics, vol. 25, no. 2, 023029. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/acbc3f

Yang, P-Y, Noad, H, Barber, M, Kikugawa, N, Sokolov, D, Mackenzie, A & Hicks, C 2023, 'Probing Momentum-Dependent Scattering in Uniaxially Stressed Sr2RuO4 through the Hall Effect', Physical Review Letters, vol. 131, no. 3, 036301. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.036301

Jerzembeck, F, Steppke, A, Pustogow, A, Luo, Y, Chronister, A, Sokolov, DA, Kikugawa, N, Li, Y, Nicklas, M, Brown, SE, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2023, 'Upper critical field of Sr2RuO4 under in-plane uniaxial pressure', Physical Review B, vol. 107, no. 6, 064509. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.064509

Grinenko, V, Sarkar, R, Ghosh, S, Das, D, Guguchia, Z, Luetkens, H, Shipulin, I, Ramires, A, Kikugawa, N, Maeno, Y, Ishida, K, Hicks, CW & Klauss, H 2023, 'μSR measurements on Sr2RuO4 under ⟨110⟩ uniaxial stress', Physical Review B, vol. 107, no. 2, 107. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.024508

Barber, ME, Kim, H, Loew, T, Le tacon, M, Minola, M, Konczykowski, M, Keimer, B, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2022, 'Dependence of Tc of YBa2Cu3O6.67 on in-plane uniaxial stress', Physical Review B, vol. 106, no. 18, 184516. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.184516

Li, Y, Garst, M, Schmalian, J, Ghosh, S, Kikugawa, N, Sokolov, DA, Hicks, CW, Jerzembeck, F, Ikeda, MS, Hu, Z, Ramshaw, BJ, Rost, AW, Nicklas, M & Mackenzie, AP 2022, 'Elastocaloric determination of the phase diagram of Sr2RuO4', Nature, vol. 607, no. 7918, pp. 276-280. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04820-z

Kim, HH, Ueda, K, Nakata, S, Wochner, P, Mackenzie, A, Hicks, C, Khaliullin, G, Liu, H, Keimer, B & Minola, M 2022, 'Giant stress response of terahertz magnons in a spin-orbit Mott insulator', Nature Communications, vol. 13, no. 1, 6674. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34375-6

Nakata, S, Yang, P, Barber, ME, Ishida, K, Kim, H, Loew, T, Tacon, ML, Mackenzie, AP, Minola, M, Hicks, CW & Keimer, B 2022, 'Normal-state charge transport in YBa2Cu3O6.67 under uniaxial stress', npj Quantum Materials, vol. 7, no. 1, 118. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-022-00532-9

Zhang, Y, Arpino, KE, Yang, Q, Kikugawa, N, Sokolov, DA, Hicks, CW, Liu, J, Felser, C & Li, G 2022, 'Observation of a robust and active catalyst for hydrogen evolution under high current densities', Nature Communications, vol. 13, no. 1, 7784. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35464-2

Ikhlas, M, Dasgupta, S, Theuss, F, Higo, T, Kittaka, S, Ramshaw, BJ, Tchernyshyov, O, Hicks, CW & Nakatsuji, S 2022, 'Piezomagnetic switching of the anomalous Hall effect in an antiferromagnet at room temperature', Nature Physics, vol. 18, no. 9, pp. 1086-1093. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01645-5

Waite, R, Orlandi, F, Sokolov, DA, Ribeiro, RA, Canfield, PC, Manuel, P, Khalyavin, DD, Hicks, CW & Hayden, SM 2023, 'Spin-density-wave order controlled by uniaxial stress in CeAuSb2', Physical Review B, vol. 106, no. 22, 224415. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.224415

Jerzembeck, F, Røising, HS, Steppke, A, Rosner, H, Sokolov, DA, Kikugawa, N, Scaffidi, T, Simon, SH, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2022, 'The superconductivity of Sr2RuO4 under c-axis uniaxial stress', Nature Communications, vol. 13, no. 1, 4596. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32177-4

Pili, L, Steppke, A, Barber, ME, Jerzembeck, F, Hicks, CW, Guruciaga, PC, Prabhakaran, D, Moessner, R, Mackenzie, AP, Grigera, SA & Borzi, RA 2022, 'Topological metamagnetism: Thermodynamics and dynamics of the transition in spin ice under uniaxial compression', Physical Review B, vol. 105, no. 18, 184422. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.184422

Singh, E, Beccard, H, Amber, ZH, Ratzenberger, J, Hicks, CW, Rüsing, M & Eng, LM 2022, 'Tuning domain wall conductivity in bulk lithium niobate by uniaxial stress', Physical Review B, vol. 106, no. 14, 144103. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.144103

View all publications in research portal

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