Microwave measurements

• ES8361A PNA network analyzer with option N5250A (frequencies from 10 MHz to 110 GHz, powers up to 10 dBm). For FMR and SAW devices characterization.
• 8565E spectrum analyzer (30 Hz and 50 GHz, with frequency dividers that allow the signal detection to be brought up to 120 GHz).
• Pulsed rf-generator Rohde-Schwarz SMB-100A (frequencies from 100 kHz to 20 GHz, powers from –50 dBm to +17 dBm).
• Digital oscilloscope (Rohde-Schwarz) with 6 GHz bandwidth.
• Accessory equipment for microwave measurements: coaxial cables, inter-series connectors and adapters, resonant cavities, waveguides, amplifiers, circulators, T-bias, pulse generators, DC-blocks, etc.
• Electromagnet with 12-cm poles and variable pole spacing. Magnetic fields of up to 2.5 T.
• Electromagnet with 6-cm-diameter poles. Magnetic fields of up to 2 T.
• Equipment for DC and low frequency electrical measurements: multimeters, lock-in amplifiers, current and voltage sources, low frequency function generators and oscilloscopes.

Thin-film growth

• We have access to the facilities of thin film growth of the ICMAB “Scientific Services” that allow pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of thin films and a sputtering chamber.
• We also have access to ICN2 facilities to complement our systems of thermal and e-beam evaporation.

Lithography and device fabrication

• Dr. Marius V. Costache recently has got a project of “Consolidación Investigadora” to install a laser-lithography (CNS2022-135821) in our lab. It is planned that this equipment will be in operation before summer 2024 in the clean room of the Faculty of Physics UB.
• Dedicated homemade system for transfer and inspection of 2D materials for stack fabrication: we have access to the clean room facility of the Faculty of Physics UB, the NANOQUIM platform at ICMAB for lithography, and the CNM-CSIC clean room.

MOKE microscopy

Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE) microscopy allows probing the magnetization and magnetic domains of a sample. Our microscope is able to measure both out-of-plane and in-plane magnetization. We have updated the setup with a pulsed LED light-source to be able to perform stroboscopic time-resolved images at the sub-nanosecond range.

Micromagnetic simulation

E13 GPU-based numerical calculation system. This is a PC computer with 2 ASUS GeForce RTX 2080Ti graphics cards with 4352 CUDA processors and 11GB of GDDR6 graphics memory each. We plan to acquire a new computer with new, up-to-date CPU and GPU cards that will improve our computing capabilities.

Magnetometry, X-ray diffraction, scanning probe microscopy

We have access and routinely use the Scientific and Technological Centers of the UB and those at ICMAB-CSIC, which include magnetometry, X-ray diffraction, and scanning proximity probe microscopy (including scanning thermal microscopy).

X-PEEM and XMCD microscopy

CIRCE is a variable polarization soft X-ray beamline dedicated to advanced photoemission experiments. A plane grating monochromator covering the energy range 0.1-2.0 keV, which are the relevant energies in absorption edges of the studied materials (Fe, Co, Mn, Ni, Cu, V, Cr and Ti), is used to perform PEEM (photoemission electron microscopy).