Luke Turnbull

Luke’s research focuses on quantum and magnetic materials, driven by an interest in nanoscale magnetic and superconducting systems. His work explores magnetic configurations that are topologically non-trivial – such as skyrmions and hopfions – and how these are influenced by broken symmetries. This includes effects that can arise intrinsically from a material’s crystal structure or extrinsically through three-dimensional nanostructuring of a system.

He primarily uses soft X-ray imaging techniques to study these three-dimensional nanoscale systems and has a keen interest in developing new methodologies for three-dimensional magnetic imaging. His broader interests include ferroic ordering phenomena, ranging from magnetic phases such as ferromagnetism, antiferromagnetism, and altermagnetism, to multiferroic materials where multiple types of order can coexist and interact. He is keen to apply spectroscopic imaging techniques to gain deeper insights into these systems.

To complement his experimental work, Luke also employs numerical modelling, with experience in both finite-difference and finite-element approaches to micromagnetics and time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory.

Luke completed both his undergraduate and doctoral studies in physics at Durham University, where his PhD research focused on X-ray imaging investigations of topological magnetism. He subsequently joined the group of Claire Donnelly at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, as a Humboldt Research Fellow, working on geometry-induced effects in three-dimensional magnetic and superconducting nanostructures. During this time, he was a frequent user of synchrotron radiation facilities, carrying out soft X-ray imaging experiments to explore nanoscale magnetic phenomena.

He also held an Affiliate Postdoctoral position at the International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter (WPI: SKCM2), Hiroshima University.

Luke joined Diamond Light Source in 2025 as a Beamline Scientist on the CSXID beamline, where his focus is on the quantum materials imaging endstation.