Affiliated Faculty

Summary of Expertise

My scientific expertise is in characterizing magnetic materials with polarized x-rays. I am primarily using x-ray spectromicroscopies, which allow me in a unique way to image with almost nanometer spatial and better than 100 ps temporal resolution spin textures and their fast dynamics with elemental and magnetic sensitivity. I am also strongly engaged in developing novel  x-ray instrumentation such as magnetic x-ray tomography.

Research Interests

• magnetism on the nano- and mesoscale
• magnetic x-ray microscopy and spectroscopy
• (ultra-)fast spin dynamics
• soft x-ray tomography of condensed matter
• x-ray optics

Biography, Education and Training

I studied physics at the TU Munich/Germany and received my Dr.rer.nat (PhD) for my thesis “X-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the L2,3 edges of 4f-elements” in 1993. In 2000 I received my habilitiation (venia legendi) from the U Wuerzburg in Germany based on my pioneering work on magnetic soft X-ray microscopy. From 2001-2004 I was group leader at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart/Germany and lecturer for experimental physics at the U Stuttgart/Germany. In 2004 I joined the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory as Staff Scientist and Principal Investigator. I was promoted to Senior Scientist in 2016. In 2014 I was appointed as Adjunct Professor in Physics at UC Santa Cruz. Since 2015 I have been serving  the Materials Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab as Deputy Division Director, being Interim Division Director from 2016-2017, and since 2023.

Honors, Awards and Grants

2014 APS Fellow
2014 IEEE Fellow
2013 Zhongshan Distinguished Lecturer, Nanjing, China
2011 IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer
2010 Klaus-Halbach-Award, ALS Berkeley CA

Selected Publications

• P. Fischer, H. Ohldag, X-rays and magnetism, Report on Progress in Physics 78 094501 (2015)
• N. Kent, N. Reynolds, D. Raftrey, I.T.G. Campbell, S. Virasawmy, S. Dhuey, R.V. Chopdekar, A. Hierro-Rodriguez, A. Sorrentino, E. Pereiro, S. Ferrer, F. Hellman, P. Sutcliffe, P. Fischer, Creation and Observation of Hopfions in Magnetic Multilayer Systems, Nature Communications 12 1562 (2021)
• D. Raftrey, P. Fischer, Field-driven dynamics of magnetic Hopfions, Phys Rev Lett 127 257201 (2021)
• S. Kasai, P. Fischer, M-Y. Im, K. Yamada, Y. Nakatani, K. Kobayashi, H. Kohno, and T. Ono, Real-time X-ray imaging of current-induced resonant motion of a vortex core in a ferromagnetic disk, Phys Rev Lett 101, 237203 (2008)
• G. Meier, M. Bolte, R. Eiselt, B. Krueger, D.-H. Kim, P. Fischer, Direct imaging of current driven stochastic domain-wall motion and deformation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 187202 (2007)
• A. Fernández-Pacheco, R. Streubel, O. Fruchart, R. Hertel, P. Fischer, R. P. Cowburn, Three-dimensional nanomagnetism, Nature Comm 8:15756 (2017)
• S. Woo, K. Litzius, B. Krüger, M.-Y. Im, L. Caretta, K. Ritchter, M. Mann, A. Krone, R. Reeve, M. Weigand, P. Agrawal, P. Fischer, M. Kläui, G.S.D. Beach, Observation of room temperature magnetic skyrmions and their current-driven dynamics in ultrathin Co films, Nature Materials 15 501 (2016)
• P. Fischer, Imaging techniques: X-rays used to watch spins in 3D, Nature 547 290 (2017)
• M. H. Seaberg, B. Holladay, J. C. T. Lee, M. Sikorski, A. H. Reid, S. A. Montoya, G. L. Dakovski, J. D. Koralek, G. Coslovich, S. Moeller, W. F. Schlotter, R. Streubel, S. D. Kevan, P. Fischer, E. E. Fullerton, J. L. Turner, F.-J. Decker, S. K. Sinha, S. Roy, J. J. Turner, Nanosecond X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy on Magnetic Skyrmions Phys Rev Lett 119 067403 (2017)
• X. Liu, N. Kent, A. Ceballos, R. Streubel, Y. Jiang, Y. Chai, J. Forth, F. Hellman, S. Shi, D. Wang, B.A. Helms,  P.D. Ashby, P. Fischer, T.P. Russell, Reconfigurable Ferromagnetic Liquid Droplets, Science 365 (6450) 264 (2019)