Short bio

Khrystyna Levchenko was born on the third of August 1991 in the picturesque city of Ternopil, Ukraine. Since 2020 she has been a Postdoctoral researcher in the "Nanomagnetism and Magnonics" group at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna, Austria (Senior Postdoc since November 2023).

Her scientific journey started at the Technical University in Ternopil (Ukraine) where she pursued an engineering degree in the discipline of automation and computer-integrated technologies, though she was always wandering what’s beyond this industrial delimiting line. The first studies, where practical engineering was applied to a more conceptual scientific topic, were performed as a part of the pre-diploma internship at Marie Skłodowska-Curie University of Physics (Poland) under the guidance of Dr Oksana Jastrubchak.

This inspired Khrystyna to pursue her PhD at the Institute of Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland) with a full immersion into the development of advanced, epitaxially-grown nm-thick materials for spintronic applications. Dedication to the research was rewarded with a solo project titled “The phenomena of magnetoresistance memory in nanostructures from a ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)(Bi,As)” PRELUDIUM P-466/P, funded by the National Science Centre (NCN, Poland). In December 2019, the success was further cemented with a PhD thesis defence.

One of the most important contributions to the scientific and personal development of Dr Levchenko was gained with the Nanomagnetism and Magnonics research group under the lead of Prof. A. Chumak. The dynamic nature of the young team and the constantly evolving field of magnonics motivates to think outside the box and to harness personal development. Therefore, after a successful engagement as a Post-doctoral researcher in “Functional layers of nm-thick YIG films and microstructure” FWF I 4696-N project in 2020-2023, Khrystyna joined the ERC PoC research focused on the nanoscale spin-wave RF filters and multiplexers for 5G communication systems (2022-2024). Finally, Dr Levchenko took the lead becoming an ESPRIT fellow and a PI of the ESP 526 “Topological magnonic nanocrystals” Early-Stage Program by Austrian Science Funds (FWF) in late 2023. The main goal of the latter is to explore topological magnon transport via experimentally realised topological magnonic crystals at the nanoscale.

Throughout her career, a thread of a potential research application was never lost – whether it is a magnetic memory unit with a complex domain profile or magnonics prototype for RF/data-processing applications, which visualises her main scientific career goals – science for the future, driven by the demands of today.

Main scientific interests

Magnonic crystals
One- and two-dimensional nanoscale magnonic crystals, topologically protected magnon transport in magnonic crystals

Nanoscale magnonics and spintronics
Ga:YIG fast exchange magnonics; nonlinear wave physics; magnon spintronics; dilute magnetic semiconductors thin films; magneto-transport and spin-orbit phenomena

Spin-wave RF applications
Macro- and nanoscale spin-wave RF applications; nanoscale YIG and YIG-based films; hexaferrite films for applied spin-wave development