Research Expertise and Interest
Atomic-scale synthesis of complex oxide heterostructures, 2D materials, spin-charge coupling, polar and magnetic topologies, electron microscopy, piezoforce microscopy, NV magnetometry, materials processing for devices, energy efficient electronics(12634)
Research Description
Professor Ramesh has made seminal contributions to the science and technology of complex correlated oxides using epitaxy as a pathway to create model systems. His pioneering fundamental work on ferroelectrics eliminated the 30-year problem of polarization fatigue through control of the electrode-ferroelectric interface. Control and manipulation of magnetism with electric fields, to enable a new generation of ultra-low power information storage and communication components for Beyond Moore’s Law electronics, is a science & technology grand challenge. His group is a worldwide leader in this field. He was the first to demonstrate electric field control of magnetism using multiferroics to enable an ~1 attoJoule, Magnetoelectric Spin-Orbit Coupled (MESO) logic/memory device. To date, Ramesh has >600 publications and >100,000 citations, resulting in an h-index >150. He is a member of: (i) the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences; (ii)Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London; (iii) fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2005), Materials Research Society (2009); (iv) the American Academy for Arts and Sciences (2022); (v) the Indian National Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. Ramesh’s honors include the Humboldt Senior Scientist Prize, APS Adler Lectureship, MRS David Turnbull Prize, APS McGroddy New Materials Prize, TMS Bardeen Prize, IUPAP Magnetism Award and Néel Medal and the 2022 Europhysics Prize.
Scientific leadership: Ramesh has served in a number of important scientific leadership roles, broadly impacting science and technology. He was the Founding Director of the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative which is lauded worldwide for bringing solar electricity into large-scale deployment globally. As the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at ORNL he oversaw one of the nation’s largest R&D programs in materials and physical sciences, energy and engineering, computational sciences, biological and environmental science, neutron science, and global security. Ramesh launched the Lian Russell Fellowship directed towards women and minorities. As the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Technologies at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he led the entire Energy Technologies portfolio and helped create two diversity enabling early career fellowships.
Technological Leadership: Ramesh’s >80 patents are now being commercialized by a start-up, Kepler Computing, that he co-founded.
In the News
UC Berkeley Faculty Members Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Nine Faculty Members Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences
National Academy, Royal Society elect new UC Berkeley members
New quantum materials could take computers beyond the semiconductor era
Remembrances of Things Past: Berkeley Lab Researchers Discover Nanoscale Shape-Memory Oxide
Listen up nickel-titanium and all you other shape-memory alloys, there’s a new kid on the block that just claimed the championship for elasticity and is primed to take over the shape memory apps market at the nanoscale.
Electricity-generating viruses could lead to pocket power plants
Scientists at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab have harnessed the electricity-generating capabilities of viruses, a development that could lead to pocket power plants for mobile devices.
Berkeley Lab Researchers Make First Perovskite-based Superlens for the Infrared
Berkeley Lab researchers have fabricated superlenses from perovskite oxides that are ideal for capturing light in the mid-infrared range, opening the door to highly sensitive biomedical detection and imaging. It may also be possible to turn the superlensing effect on/off, opening the door to highly dense data writing and storage.
Enhancing the Magnetism: Berkeley Researchers Find Enhanced and Controllable Magnetization in Unique Bismuth Ferrite Films
Berkeley Lab researchers have enhanced the spontaneous magnetization in a special form of the popular multiferroic bismuth ferrite. What’s more, they can turn this magnetization “on/off” through the application of an external electric field, a critical ability for the advancement of spintronic technology.
Three UC Berkeley faculty members elected to National Academy of Engineering
Three UC Berkeley faculty members have joined the ranks of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. Armen Der Kiureghian, Jitendra Malik and Ramamoorthy Ramesh are among 68 new members and nine foreign associates elected on February 8, 2011.
Featured in the Media
A revolutionary magneto-electric spin-orbit (MESO) logic device invented by Intel is an exciting development in the application of multiferroic, a material created at Berkeley in 2001 by materials science and engineering professor Ramamoorthy Ramesh. In a new study led by Professor Ramesh, and co-authored with researchers from Intel and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the scientists describe the new MESO device, which could replace current semiconductor technology. "The discovery was that there are materials where you can apply a voltage and change the magnetic order of the multiferroic," Professor Ramesh says. "But to me, 'What would we do with these multiferroics?' was always a big question. MESO bridges that gap and provides one pathway for computing to evolve." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Other stories on this topic appeared in dozens of sources around the world, including ExecutiveBiz, News Live TV, Kopitiam Bot, Dark Vision Hardware (Belgium), The Guru of 3D (Netherlands), EQ International (India), TechSpot, and TechSite.