Richard has a Phd in Materials Engineer in the field of nanostructured soft magnetic materials. His work has focused on the production, characterisation and development of Fe-metalloid nanocrystalline magnetically soft materials for use in applications such as high-frequency transformers, inductors and electric motors.

Richard’s primary role in the laboratory is as an experimentalist. In this role, he has gained extensive experience in the production process of magnetically soft amorphous materials through the planar flow casting (melt spinning) process. He has also gained expertise in the characterisation of their structural (DTA, TMGA, XRD, etc.) and magnetic properties (coercivity, permeability, saturation magnetisation, core loss, loss separation, saturation magnetostriction etc.) of soft magnetic materials.

Richard’s most recent work has focused on the development of high efficiency soft magnetic materials specifically designed for high power density and high torque density electric motors. Through the development of a novel ultra-rapid annealing process, we have successfully developed a new class of nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials (HiB-Nanoperm) which, for the first time, has a saturation magnetisation directly comparable to Fe-Si steel while offering approximately one-tenth the core loss.

Outside of the laboratory, Richard’s passions include electronics, robotics, CNC machining and all things related to the design, simulation, construction and testing of electric motors and their motor controllers.