Dr Clifford Hicks PhD

School of Physics and Astronomy
Reader in Condensed Matter Physics

Contact details

Telephone: +49(0)3514646 3227
Email: c.hicks.1@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Physics and Astronomy
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Clifford Hicks is a Reader in Condensed Matter Physics.

Dr. Hicks’ group studies correlated electron systems such as superconductors and magnetically ordered compounds. He is a specialist in instrumentation, and his group works at the intersection of basic science and new, custom engineering, in order to pursue open scientific questions as directly as possible. He is famous in particular for development of methods for strain tuning, which has led seven Science- and Nature-group publications since 2014, the founding of a spin-out company, Razorbill Instruments, and a large number of collaborations, including with groups in Germany, Japan, and the United States.

Dr. Hicks believes that fundamental science is at its core an activity done to maintain human curiosity and lust for adventure and excellence. Through pursuit of fundamental, beautiful scientific questions, members of his group gain a wide range of useful engineering skills. Good scientists should never be afraid to build themselves the equipment that they need! This is part of the adventure.

Qualifications

PhD in Applied Physics, Stanford University, U.S.A., 2009
B.S. in Physics, California Institute of Technology, U.S.A., 2000.

Teaching

• Daniel O. Brodsky (U. St. Andrews, 2015)

• Mark E. Barber (U. St. Andrews, 2017)

• Jack M. Bartlett (U. St. Andrews, 2019)

• Fabian Jerzembeck (Technical University of Dresden, 2020)

• Shreenanda Ghosh (Technical University of Dresden, 2021)

Other activities

Co-founder and technical advsior for Razorbill Instruments, an engineering company based in Edinburgh, U.K., 2014

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Mueller, E, Iguchi, Y, Jerzembeck, F, Rodriguez, J, Romanelli, M, Abarca-Morales, E, Markou, A, Kikugawa, N, Sokolov, D, Oh, G, Hicks, C, Mackenzie, A, Maeno, Y, Madhavan, V & Moler, K 2024, 'Superconducting penetration depth through a Van Hove singularity: Sr₂RuO₄ under uniaxial stress', Physical Review B, vol. 110, no. 10, L100502. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.110.L100502

Jerzembeck, F, Li, Y-S, Palle, G, Hu, Z, Biderang, M, Kikugawa, N, Sokolov, DA, Ghosh, S, Ramshaw, BJ, Scaffidi, T, Nicklas, M, Schmalian, J, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2024, 'T_c and the elastocaloric effect of Sr₂RuO₄ under ⟨110⟩ uniaxial stress: No indications of transition splitting', Physical Review B, vol. 110, no. 6, 064514. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.110.064514

Vinograd, I, Souliou, SM, Haghighirad, A-A, Lacmann, T, Caplan, Y, Frachet, M, Merz, M, Garbarino, G, Liu, Y, Nakata, S, Ishida, K, Noad, HML, Minola, M, Keimer, B, Orgad, D, Hicks, CW & Le Tacon, M 2024, 'Using strain to uncover the interplay between two- and three-dimensional charge density waves in high-temperature superconducting YBa₂Cu₃O_y', Nature Communications, vol. 15, no. 1, 3277. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47540-w

Mueller, E, Iguchi, Y, Watson, C, Hicks, C, Maeno, Y & Moler, K 2023, 'Constraints on a split superconducting transition under uniaxial strain in Sr₂RuO₄ from scanning SQUID microscopy', Physical Review B, vol. 108, no. 14, 144501. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.108.144501

Palle, G, Hicks, C, Valenti, R, Hu, Z, Li, Y-S, Rost, A, Nicklas, M, Mackenzie, A & Schmalian, J 2023, 'Constraints on the superconducting state of Sr₂RuO₄ from elastocaloric measurements', Physical Review B, vol. 108, no. 9, 094516. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.108.094516

Guguchia, Z, Das, D, Simutis, G, Adachi, T, Küspert, J, Kitajima, N, Elender, M, Grinenko, V, Ivashko, O, Zimmermann, MV, Müller, M, Mielke, C, Hotz, F, Mudry, C, Baines, C, Bartkowiak, M, Shiroka, T, Koike, Y, Amato, A, Hicks, CW, Gu, GD, Tranquada, JM, Klauss, H-H, Chang, JJ, Janoschek, M & Luetkens, H 2023, 'Designing the stripe-ordered cuprate phase diagram through uniaxial-stress', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 121, no. 1, 2303423120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2303423120

Noad, H, Ishida, K, Li, Y-S, Gati, E, Stangier, V, Kikugawa, N, Sokolov, D, Nicklas, M, Kim, B, Mazin, I, Garst, M, Schmalian, J, Mackenzie, A & Hicks, C 2023, 'Giant lattice softening at a Lifshitz transition in Sr₂RuO₄', Science, vol. 382, no. 6669, pp. 447-450. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adf3348

Abarca Morales, E, Siemann, GR, Zivanovic, A, Murgatroyd, PAE, Marković, I, Edwards, B, Hooley, CA, Sokolov, DA, Kikugawa, N, Cacho, C, Watson, MD, Kim, TK, Hicks, CW, Mackenzie, AP & King, PDC 2023, 'Hierarchy of Lifshitz Transitions in the Surface Electronic Structure of Sr₂RuO₄ under Uniaxial Compression', Physical Review Letters, vol. 130, no. 9, 096401. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.096401

Zuniga-Cespedes, BE, Manna, K, Noad, HML, Yang, P, Nicklas, M, Felser, C, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2023, 'Observation of an anomalous Hall effect in single-crystal Mn₃Pt', New Journal of Physics, vol. 25, no. 2, 023029. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/acbc3f

Yang, P-Y, Noad, H, Barber, M, Kikugawa, N, Sokolov, D, Mackenzie, A & Hicks, C 2023, 'Probing Momentum-Dependent Scattering in Uniaxially Stressed Sr₂RuO₄through the Hall Effect', Physical Review Letters, vol. 131, no. 3, 036301. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.036301

Waite, R, Orlandi, F, Sokolov, DA, Ribeiro, RA, Canfield, PC, Manuel, P, Khalyavin, DD, Hicks, CW & Hayden, SM 2023, 'Spin-density-wave order controlled by uniaxial stress in CeAuSb₂', Physical Review B, vol. 106, no. 22, 224415. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.224415

Jakovac, I, Dioguardi, A, Grbic, M, Gu, G, Tranquada, J, Hicks, C, Pozek, M & Graefe, H-J 2023, 'Uniaxial stress study of spin and charge stripes in La_1.875Ba_0.125CuO₄ by ¹³⁹La NMR and ⁶³Cu NQR', Physical Review B, vol. 108, no. 20, 205113. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.108.205113

Jerzembeck, F, Steppke, A, Pustogow, A, Luo, Y, Chronister, A, Sokolov, DA, Kikugawa, N, Li, Y, Nicklas, M, Brown, SE, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2023, 'Upper critical field of Sr₂RuO₄under in-plane uniaxial pressure', Physical Review B, vol. 107, no. 6, 064509. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.064509

Grinenko, V, Sarkar, R, Ghosh, S, Das, D, Guguchia, Z, Luetkens, H, Shipulin, I, Ramires, A, Kikugawa, N, Maeno, Y, Ishida, K, Hicks, CW & Klauss, H 2023, 'μSR measurements on Sr2RuO4 under ⟨110⟩ uniaxial stress', Physical Review B, vol. 107, no. 2, 107. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.024508

Barber, ME, Kim, H, Loew, T, Le tacon, M, Minola, M, Konczykowski, M, Keimer, B, Mackenzie, AP & Hicks, CW 2022, 'Dependence of T_c of YBa₂Cu₃O_6.67on in-plane uniaxial stress', Physical Review B, vol. 106, no. 18, 184516. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.184516

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