Amanda Petford-Long

Petford-Long studied physics at University College London, graduating in 1981.[3] She earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford in 1985 for research on Beta-alumina solid electrolytes supervised by Colin Humphreys.[2][3] She was a postgraduate student at St. Cross College, Oxford.[2]

Petford-Long served as professor at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, from 2002.[4][5] She worked on spray coated nanocomposite materials and magnetic nanoparticles and used an atom probe.[6][7][8] She was the only woman to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2005.[9][10] Petford-Long moved to Argonne National Laboratory in 2005.[3]

She served as director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials from 2010 to 2014, developing new techniques for nanoscale characterisation.[3] She delivered a lecture for the Chicago Council on Science and Technology in 2014.[11][12]

She has explored the microstructure and magnetic field properties in multiferroic tunnel junctions.[13] She works with Jacqueline Johnson on fluorozirconate glass for novel ceramics, using pulsed laser deposition to fabricate thin films.[14][15] She has demonstrated that nanoparticle crystallisation impacts the optical properties of the glass ceramics.[16] Pulsed laser deposition allows her to control the distribution of europium dopants and the nanocrystalline phase behaviour.[15] The applications include up and down-converters for solar cells.[15] She discussed their work on NPR in 2018.[17]

Petford-Long develops in situ magnetised transmission electron microscopy (TEM) methods for examining magnetic thin film structures.[18] She uses Lorentz transmission electron microscopy to identify the micromagnetic behaviour.[19] She created skyrmions, chiral spin structures with no net charge.[20][21] They used an ion-beam, allowing them to make skyrmion-like structures at a variety of length scales.[22] She showed that non-repeating patterns in quasicrystals could be used to store information.[23]

She serves as chair of the American Physical Society Division of Materials Physics from 2018 to 2019.[24] She serves on the scientific advisory board of the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices at Trinity College Dublin.[25] She is Chair of the Argonne National Laboratory Chief Research Officer Council.[3] She is an advocate for women in engineering and has been involved in initiatives to inspire young girls to choose engineering at college.[26][27][28]