2015 First Order Reversal Curve (FORC) Workshop

First order reversal curves (FORCs) are an elegant, nondestructive tool for characterizing the magnetic behavior of carefully engineered materials as well as natural samples. The 2015 FORC Workshop explored the fundamental theory underlying this tool and participants took part in hands-on training to learn how to effectively acquire and process FORC data. This meeting was held from July 23-24, 2015 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The 2-day program targeted scientists and engineers (including graduate students and early career scientists) whose research involves the study of magnetic materials. The first day of the workshop began with an introduction to the theory underlying the FORC technique and lead into a symposium of invited speakers from a range of disciplines, including Richard Harrison (Dept. Earth Sciences, Univ. Cambridge), Kai Liu (Dept. of Physics, UC Davis), Alexandru Stancu (Dept. of Physics, Cuza University), Gergely Zimanyi (Dept. of Physics, UC Davis), and Victorino Franco (Condensed Matter Physics Dept., Sevilla Univ.). The afternoon featured a poster session and food and wine reception. The second day of the workshop consisted of hands-on demonstrations that trained participants on the best practices associated with acquiring high quality FORC data and optimizing the processing of the data.

This workshop was generously supported by Lake Shore Cryotronics, Inc., the National Science Foundation, and the Institute for Rock Magnetism at the University of Minnesota. The chief organizers were Josh Feinberg (Institute for Rock Magnetism, Univ. Minnesota, feinberg@umn.edu) and Leonard Spinu (Advanced Materials Research Institute, Univ. New Orleans, LSpinu@uno.edu).