Dr. Manuel Langer

Manuel Langer is a doctor in physics working as a postdoc at Paul Scherrer Institute as member of the Microspectroscopy Group. Manuel obtained his Master's degree as well as his PhD in physics at the Technische Universität Dresden and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). He carried out his Master thesis in the Magnetism group at HZDR working on synthetic antiferromagnets with the goal to investigate the impact of ion-irradiation on these structures. The goal was to annihilate the antiferromagnetic coupling locally, which leads to the creation of ferromagnetic elements embedded in a matrix of a continuous synthetic antiferromagnet. A second goal was the magnetometric characterization of such embedded elements and the comparison of etched, "free standing" magnetic nanostructures with the embedded elements. During his PhD, Manuel Langer was working in the field of magnetization dynamics and ferromagnetic resonance. He investigated the behavior of spin waves in periodically patterned systems, so called "magnonic crystals". In this work, his main subjective was to understand the transition from weakly periodically perturbed thin films to fully etched, "free-standing" periodic elements. In 2017, Manuel successfully applied for the PSI Felloship under the umbrella of the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions, which gave him the opportunity to start his postdoc project at PSI on the development of a new soft x-ray spectro-microscope based on ptychography for the investigation of nano-magnetic materials.

Integrated planning of the technical development and the measurement times of the soft x-ray ptychography endstation at the SIM beamline. Moreover, his responsibility includes user support as well as the application and acquisition of beamtime for the measurement with the soft x-ray ptychography endstation. The main instrumental capabilities are ranging from static scanning transmission x-ray microscopy (STXM), x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) over ptychography to time-resolved (TR-) dynamic measurements, such as TR-STXM and TR-Ptychograpy.

Manuel Langer's scientific research is currently focused on the development of soft x-ray ptychography and its application to nanomagnetic systems. His technical research concerns the commissioning and the development of the soft x-ray ptychography endstation at the SIM beamline. Recent technical achievements are reaching 10 nm imaging resolution, the realization of an interferometric position control as well as the demonstration of ptychographic imaging in reflection geometry. His projects include the investigation of the energy-dependent amplitude and phase contrast for optimal imaging of magnetic systems. This research is mainly focused on thin films (FeGd), nanoparticles (CoO, BiFeO3, Fe and GdFeCo) and periodic systems (magnetite mesocrystals). Manuel Langer's second main topical focus is on the measurement of magnetization dynamics by either time-resolved STXM or time-resolved ptychography. These investigations concern the mapping of magnon Bose-Einstein condensates, the measurement of propagating spin-waves in synthetic antiferromagnets as well as the investigation of the XMCD phase contrast for time-resolved measurements to name but a few.

Symmetry and localization properties of defect modes in magnonic superlattices
R. A. Gallardo, T. Schneider, A. Roldán-Molina, M. Langer, A. S. Núñez, K. Lenz, J. Lindner, and P. Landeros
PHYSICAL REVIEW B 97, 174404 (2018).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.174404

Dipolar interaction induced band gaps and flat modes in surface-modulated magnonic crystals
R. A. Gallardo, T. Schneider, A. Roldán-Molina, M. Langer, J. Fassbender, K. Lenz, J. Lindner, and P. Landeros
PHYSICAL REVIEW B 97, 144405 (2018).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.144405

Ultra-dense planar metallic nanowire arrays with extremely large anisotropic optical and magnetic properties
Q. Jia, X. Ou, M. Langer, B. Schreiber, J. Grenzer, P. F. Siles, R. D. Rodriguez, K. Huang, Y. Yuan, A. Heidarian, R. Hübner, T. You, W. Yu, K. Lenz, J. Lindner, X. Wang, and S. Facsko
NANO RESEARCH (2017).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1793-y

Role of internal demagnetizing field for the dynamics of a surface-modulated magnonic crystal
M. Langer, F. Röder, R. A. Gallardo, T. Schneider, S. Stienen, C. Gatel, R. Hübner, L. Bischoff, K. Lenz, J. Lindner, P. Landeros, and J. Fassbender
PHYSICAL REVIEW B 95, 184405 (2017).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.184405

Programmability of Co-antidot lattices of optimized geometry
T. Schneider, M. Langer, J. Alekhina, E. Kowalska, A. Oelschlägel, A. Semisalova, A. Neudert, K. Lenz, K. Potzger, M. P. Kostylev, J. Fassbender, A. O. Adeyeye, J. Lindner and R. Bali
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS 7, 41157 (2017).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep41157

Parameter-free determination of the exchange constant in thin films using magnonic patterning
M. Langer, K. Wagner, T. Sebastian, R. Hübner, J. Grenzer, Yutian Wang, T. Kubota, T. Schneider, S. Stienen, K. Lenz, H. Schultheiß, J. Lindner, K. Takanashi, R. E. Arias, and J. Fassbender
APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 108, 102402 (2016).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.184405

Optimization of magneto-resistive response of ion-irradiated exchange biased films through zigzag arrangement of magnetization
J. Trützschler, K. Sentosun, M. Langer, I. Mönch, R. Mattheis, J. Fassbender, and J. McCord
JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 115, 103901 (2014).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4867742

Magneto-optical analysis of stripe elements embedded in a synthetic antiferromagnet
M. Langer, A. Neudert, J. I. Mönch, R. Mattheis, K. Lenz, J. Fassbender, and J. McCord
PHYSICAL REVIEW B 89, 064411 (2014).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.89.064411