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We investigate how the collective behaviour of electrons, spins and atoms gives rise to the remarkable properties of materials — and how those properties can be controlled to create new physical phenomena and technologies.

Our research spans magnetism, spintronics, superconductivity, quantum and topological materials, nanoscale devices, and theoretical and computational condensed matter physics. We are particularly interested in what happens when different materials meet: by designing interfaces and heterostructures at the atomic and nanometre scale, we can create behaviour that does not exist in the individual materials.

Based in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds, the Condensed Matter Physics Group — traditionally known as the Stoner Laboratory, after the Leeds physicist E. C. Stoner — brings together experimental and theoretical researchers working across materials, devices and computation.

From materials to fundamental physics and devices

Our research combines the full chain from creating materials to understanding their behaviour.

We grow and engineer materials, including magnetic, superconducting, topological, oxide and molecular systems. We fabricate them into nanoscale structures and devices, probe their electrical, magnetic and structural properties, and develop theory and large-scale computer simulations to understand the physics that emerges.

Our research facilities include advanced thin-film growth and nanofabrication capabilities, extensive magnetic, electrical and structural characterisation, and access to high-performance computing. The group hosts a major thin-film growth facility within the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials, allowing combinations of different materials to be grown and studied within an integrated environment.

Our researchers also use major national and international facilities, including synchrotron and neutron sources, when experiments require capabilities beyond the laboratory.

Explore our research See our facilities

Research with impact

The physics of condensed matter underpins technologies ranging from computing and data storage to sensors, communications and quantum technologies.

At Leeds we investigate fundamental questions including how spins and electrical currents interact, how magnetism can be manipulated at very short timescales and small length scales, how superconductivity and magnetism coexist, and how interfaces between different quantum materials generate new states of matter.

Some of this research is motivated by long-term technological challenges such as reducing the energy required to store and process information. Other projects are driven by more fundamental questions about how complex many-body systems behave.

Explore our research themes

Work with us

Students

Condensed matter physics provides opportunities to work at the boundary between fundamental physics, materials science and technology.

Undergraduate students encounter our research through teaching and research projects, while PhD students join active experimental, theoretical and computational research programmes.

Study Physics at Leeds PhD Opportunities

Researchers

We collaborate with researchers in the UK and internationally across condensed matter physics, materials science, nanotechnology and related fields.

Our combination of materials growth, nanofabrication, characterisation and computational modelling allows us to address problems ranging from microscopic mechanisms to functioning nanoscale devices.

Research themes People Facilities

Industry

We work with industrial partners on problems involving thin films, magnetic and electronic materials, nanoscale devices and materials characterisation.

Our capabilities include collaborative research and development, specialist materials growth and fabrication, access to characterisation techniques, and academic expertise in condensed matter physics and advanced materials.

Work with us

The Stoner Laboratory

Condensed matter physics has a long history at Leeds. The group is informally known as the Stoner Lab in recognition of E. C. Stoner, whose work on itinerant electron magnetism remains fundamental to modern magnetism.

Today the group includes academics, postdoctoral researchers, postgraduate researchers and technical specialists working across experiment, theory and computation.

Meet the group

Seminars and events

Our seminar programme brings researchers from Leeds and elsewhere to discuss current developments across condensed matter physics.

Upcoming seminars