Professor Nicola Morley

MPhys, PhD, MInstP

School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering

Deputy Head of School

Professor in Material Physics

School One University Director

Professor Nicola Morley
Profile picture of Professor Nicola Morley
n.a.morley@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 5935
Sir Robert Hadfield Building

Full contact details

Professor Nicola Morley
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

I was appointed as Lecturer to the department of Materials Science and Engineering in May 2005 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in January 2014 and Professor in January 2019.

My research is based in the Functional Magnetic Materials and Devices group (FMM). Previously, I was a postdoctoral research assistant in the FMM group at the University of Sheffield (2003-2005).

I was awarded my PhD from the University of Durham in 2003, and graduated from the University of Oxford in 1999 with a MPhys in Physics.

Research interests

My research involves investigating different functional magnetic materials (magnetocaloric, magnetostrictive, soft and hard magnets) using novel techniques such as spark plasma sintering (SPS), additive layer manufacture (ALM) and thin film deposition, to determine how the structural and microstructural properties influence the functional and mechanical properties, for applications including refrigeration, structural health monitoring and electric motors. The work includes studying element substitution, high entropy alloys, and materials design using computational methods (Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning).

Key research interests:

  • Materials Informatics, which combines computational techniques (Natural Language processing, Machine Learning) with high-throughput fabrication (thin films and additive manufacturing) and characterisation (MOKE, XRD) to discover new materials, this has been focused on high entropy alloys for applications including corrosion resistant materials, soft magnetic materials and fusion materials
  • Combinatorial design studies of magnetic high entropy alloys, using high-throughput thin film fabrication and characterisation to determine how the functional properties are influenced by the structural properties, with the aim to gain further understanding of these materials and discover new soft magnetic materials
  • Developing magnetostrictive damage sensors to detect barely visible damage on aerospace composites, including composite repair and using magnetic nanoparticles in the epoxy
  • Developing new processing techniques including additive manufacturing for magnetocaloric and magnetostrictive materials for commercial applications
  • Using muon spectroscopy to study the transport mechanisms of different solar cell materials (polymers and inorganic-organic hybrid materials)
  • Investigating the use of underlayers and dopants in Fe-based thin films, to understand how the magnetic properties are altered at phase boundaries within films including FeCo, FeGa, FeCoNi, for use in MEMS sensors and actuators, energy harvesters and spin wave sensors
Publications

Journal articles

Conference proceedings papers

Preprints

Teaching activities

The following modules I teach on:

  • MAT1910 - Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanomaterials
  • MAT3210 - Advanced Functional Materials
  • MAT6664: Nanomaterials
  • First/Second Year Tutor
  • UG/PGT Project supervisor
Professional activities and memberships
  • Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • Member of the Institute of Physics (IoP)
  • Member of the IEEE Magnetic Society Administration Committee
Case Study - High Entropy Alloys

High Entropy Alloys: The next big thing in soft magnetic films?

"I had been working for twelve years in academia and hit a point where I had a done a lot of teaching, research and administration. I had applied for and lost a big grant to pursue a new research area, making me realise that I needed to step back from my other duties and get back into the lab to see where this research could go, so I applied for the Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship.

"'High Entropy Alloys' are big buzzwords with the materials science field, having only been discovered a decade ago. I noticed this area was underdeveloped within my own research area of magnetic materials, with only ~10 published papers on their magnetics properties, so I saw an opportunity to tune the properties within my fellowship and found that they had stranger behaviour than I had anticipated. The fellowship allowed me to explore this new area and discover these novel properties.

"My research was productive in this year and was promoted to Professor (despite only applying to Reader level) as a direct result of my fellowship. Without this fellowship, it is likely that I would only have been promoted to a Reader position with a heavier teaching load and not as much time for lab-based research. There was also benefit for the magnetics research group as in the year and a half since my fellowship, we have brought in £2.5m of research funding, compared to only £500k in the prior five years.

"I was known in the community prior to this fellowship, but since I have been invited to more conferences and was invited to sit on the Women in Magnetism International Group. The Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship came at the right time, when my kids were old enough that I could spend more time on research and has grown my confidence, setting off more career opportunities since."

Case study from The Royal Society.

Links

Functional Magnetic Materials   Royce at Sheffield