last updated: 27 October 2001

Gomez, Romel D

Prof. Gomez received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1990, specializing in Condensed Matter Physics and Surface Science. Prior to this, he obtained an MS degree in 1984 from Wayne State University in Experimental Atomic Physics and a BS degree from the University of the Philippines. His Ph.D. work was the development of scanning tunneling microscopy to probe the atomic structures of semiconductor surfaces. Since then he became interested in information storage technology and the fundamental nano-technological properties of magnetic thin films. He is actively engaged in the development of scanned probe magnetic microscopy to understand the physics of magnetism at reduced dimensions as well as the development new magnetic devices that utilize the novel magnetic properties at the nanometer length scales. He has authored over 40 papers, a book chapter and holds 2 U.S. Patents on this and other related subjects. He has served as an editor and Publication Chair of Intermag 2000 and the 8th Joint MMM-Intermag Conference in 2001 and is a member of the IEEE Transaction of Magnetics Editorial Board. He was awarded the department's 1998 George Corcoran Award for significant contributions to engineering education and the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2000. He is particularly proud of being recognized as an influential educator in the 2001 Celebrating Teachers Program of University of Maryland's Center for Teaching Excellence.

Prof. Gomez' research is centered on the exploration of magnetism at the length scales comparable to molecular dimensions and the development of novel magnetic imaging techniques. A gallery of images showing a pattern of data bits on a hard disk imaging, the magnetic moment switching of Cobalt nanoislands at the microscopic regime, or novel films is linked for your pleasure. Other practrical issues related to information storage technology are explored as well. These include the limits of areal density increase, effects of tracking misregistration and retrieval of overwritten data, erasure processes occurring in thin film (hard disk)media and magneto-optic media. To carryout these efforts, Prof. Gomez is also expanding the capabilities of magnetic force microscopy by developing methods to study dynamical effects introduced by external magnetic field and temperatures as well as the development of advanced probes to enhance resolution and sensitivity.