Recent advances in manipulating spin-polarized electron currents in atomically engineered magnetic heterostructures make possible entirely new classes of sensor, memory and logic devices - a research field generally referred to as spintronics. A magnetic recording read head, initially formed from a spin-valve, and more recently by a magnetic tunnel junction, has enabled a 1,000-fold increase in the storage capacity of hard disk drives since 1997. The very low cost of disk drives and the high performance and reliability of solid-state memories, may be combined in the Racetrack Memory.  The Racetrack Memory is a novel three dimensional technology which stores information as a series of magnetic domain walls in nanowires, manipulated by spin polarized currents.  Spintronic devices may even allow for “plastic” devices that mimic synaptic switches in the brain, thereby allowing for the possibility of very low power computing devices.  In this talk I will briefly discuss my career, what led me to the field of “spintronics”, carrying out research in an industrial setting as well my research itself.

Dr. Stuart Parkin is an IBM Fellow, Manager of the Magnetoelectronics group at the IBM Almaden Research Center, and a Consulting professor in the Dept. of Applied Physics at Stanford University.  He is also director of the IBM–Stanford Spintronic Science and Applications Center.  Recently Dr. Parkin was appointed Director, Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics, Halle Germany, and an Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.   Dr. Parkin's research interests include oxide thin film heterostructures, high-temperature superconductors, and, magnetic thin film structures and spintronic materials and devices for advanced sensor, memory, and logic applications. Parkin’s discoveries in magneto-resistive thin film structures enabled a 1000 fold increased in the storage capacity of magnetic disk drives.  Most recently, Parkin is working on a novel storage class memory device, “Racetrack Memory”. Parkin has been elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of TWAS, the World Academy of Sciences.  Parkin is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including, the American Physical Society International Prize for New Materials (1994), the Europhysics Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Physics (1997), and the 1999-2000 American Institute of Physics (AIP) Prize for Industrial Application of Physics.  Parkin has received Honorary Doctorates from RWTH Aachen, Eindhoven University of Science and Technology, University of Regensburg, and University of Kaiserslautern.   More recently Parkin received the 2008 IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award for his work on MRAM, the 2009 IUPAP Magnetism Prize and Neel Medal for outstanding contributions to the science of magnetism, the APS 2012 David Adler Lectureship Award, the 2012 von Hippel Award from the Materials Research Society, the XXXIV Krishnan Memorial Lecture Award and the 2013 Swan Medal of the Institute of Physics.   On April 9^th, 2014 Parkin was announced as the winner of the 2014 Millennium Technology Award by the Technology Academy, Finland.  This award, worth 1,000,000 Euros, will be presented to Stuart Parkin by the President of Finland on May 7^th in Helsinki, Finland.  Parkin has authored ~430 papers and has ~100 issued patents.