Andrew D. Gavrin
Associate Professor

Email Dr. Gavrin

Education

B.S., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1983
M.A. Physics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1986
Ph.D., Physics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1992

Research

Our research is built around the fabrication of artifically structured materials; we do this for several reasons, and by several methods.

First, a definition: artificially structured materials are materials made in the laboratory with microstructures not found in nature. this is a broad class of materials including metallic glasses, multilayer and superlattice structures, metastable alloys, and granular metals. These materials range from completely disordered to highly ordered, and may be either insulating or conducting, magnetic or nonmagnetic. However, they all share a crucial characteristic. Because of their unusual microstructures, these materials all possess degrees of freedom not present in naturally occurring materials - degrees of freedom over which the investigator has control.

Control over the properties of materials is interesting because it permits us to perform a variety of fundamental and applied investigations. For applications, we may tailor the microstructure of the material in order to enhance its usefulness. For instance, we may improve its magnetic properties, strength, corrosion resistance, conductivity, etc. For fundamental studies, we may tailor the material to suppress some well known phenomenon thus allowing us to study subtle effects which are overwhelmed in natural materials. Over the past few years, I have worked on improving the properties of materials for high density magnetic storage devices and power distribution transformers. I have also studied the nature of phase transitions in ultrathin spin-glass layers and nanoscale magnetic particles.

The primary avenue for controlling the properties of an artificially structured material is the fabrication process. We use two complementary methods: high vacuum sputter deposition, and high energy ball-milling. The former offers extraordinary control, but is limited to the production of small quantities of material in the form of thin films. The latter is a relatively new process which, while giving up some of the control inherent to sputtering, offers the opportunity to make large quantities of material.

Publications

Marrs KA, Blake RE, and Gavrin A (2003)
Use of Internet-based Warm Up Exercises to Determine StudentsÕ Prior Knowledge and Misconceptions in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.
J. Coll. Science Teaching 33, 42-47.