Bogdan Valcu Email & Phone Number

Milpitas, California, United States

Data analysis and recording physics for HAMR heads.

San Francisco Bay Area

• Document, implement in C# and validate test automation routines.• Debug system-level dependencies when testing accelerometer and gyroscope chips. • Use an interdisciplinary approach to understand deeper the gyro signal demodulation.• Gauge R&R studies of various metrics that characterize MEMS.• Calculate precision-to-tolerance ratio (PTR) using JMP software.• Identify the physical sources of noise in order to improve test reproducibility and repeatability.

San Francisco Bay Area

• Analyze recording media noise to extract magnetic cluster size, whose reduction leads to higher linear recording density.

San Francisco Bay Area

• Characterize recording components (heads and media) for Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology.• Design and test the performance of novel architectures of thin film stacks, with innovative combinations of magnetic and thermal properties.• Significant recording physics projects include studies of the effect of heat sink on HAMR performance, relationship between equalized Signal-to-Noise Ratio and jitter, and studies of non-linear distortions in HAMR for channel optimization.• Write proposals to fund research projects with external collaborators (universities).

San Francisco Bay Area

• I took part in the design, development and characterization of perpendicular magnetic recording media based on the Exchange Coupled Composite (ECC) concept. ECC media behave as magnetic exchange springs. The field necessary to switch magnetization is reduced, at equal thermal stability factor. • I introduced vertical exchange break layers that enable the practical realization of the ECC concept, by allowing domain walls to fit inside the nanometer-thick layers. • I brought from R&D to production the measurement of the media intrinsic switching field distribution (SFD). I showed experimentally that the composite media design reduces SFD, thus enabling higher areal density at equal media grain size.• Supervised summer projects for graduate students that worked as engineering interns.

San Francisco Bay Area

• Evaluate magnetic media reliability against thermal decay. Developed test to measure SNR decay rate; correlated to media stability factor.• Principal Component Analysis of media noise, to separate the down-track (transition parameter) and cross-track correlation lengths.

San Francisco Bay Area

Greater San Diego Area

• Analytical and numerical modeling of the recording system.• Tutored undergraduate class in Magnetic Recording. Led the software and hardware laboratories associated with the course.

Greater San Diego Area

• Coordinator of teaching assistants in various undergraduate physics courses.

Greater Pittsburgh Area

• Internship at Pittsburgh Research Center• Micromagnetic numerical studies of the spinwaves generated in the soft under-layer of the perpendicular media, during the write process

Tokyo, Japan

• Internship at Hitachi Central Research Laboratory• Studied grain size dispersion of recording media using Transmission Electron Microscopy.

Greater Chicago Area

• Assisted faculty members in the Physics department with Introductory Physics instruction. Duties included problem solving sessions, laboratory classes, tutor office hours as well as homework and exam grading.

Ph.D., Physics, Gpa 4.0/4.0

Dissertation: 'Studies in Perpendicular Magnetic Recording', Advisor: H. Neal Bertram

Education record

Paul M. Raccah Award for Doctoral Studies in Physics (1999) Highest score in the Physics Qualifying Exam

Education record

Activities and Societies: Laboratoire de Photophysique MoléculaireTEMPUS student mobility grant

B.Sc., Physics, Gpa 9.82/10

Activities and Societies: Filière FrancophoneStudy Scholarship (5 years) at University of Bucharest, Romania.

Education record