Biography
Clifford Allington is a postdoctoral researcher in the Microscopy and Magnetism Group at the Swiss Light Source. In 2018, he completed two Bachelor of Science (B.S). degrees at Colorado State University: one in Chemistry and the other in Physics. He was awarded his PhD from the Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2024, where he worked with Prof. Nuh Gedik performing ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy measurements to research various strongly correlated materials.
Scientific Research
Cliff's research is focused on x-ray synchrotron and free-electron laser measurements of strongly correlated materials, with a primary focus on the coupling of spin and lattice degrees of freedom. His current project investigates the effect of a resonant circular terahertz drive on the lattice of a perovskite material. With the use of ultrafast x-ray diffraction (XRD) and ultrafast x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), the circular motion of the ions can be assessed in addition to looking for the creation of a transient magnetic field.
Selected Publications
A comprehensive overview of Cliff's publications can be found on Google Scholar.
Selected Publications:
Allington, C. J.*, Belvin, C. A.*, Seifert, U. F., Ye, M., Tai, T., Baldini, E., ... & Gedik, N. (2025). Distinct optical excitation mechanisms of a coherent magnon in a van der Waals antiferromagnet. Physical Review Letters, 134(6), 066903.
Belvin, C. A.*, Baldini, E.*, Ozel, I. O., Mao, D., Po, H. C., Allington, C. J., ... & Gedik, N. (2021). Exciton-driven antiferromagnetic metal in a correlated van der Waals insulator. Nature communications, 12(1), 4837.