Bruce Gurney Explained

Bruce Alvin Gurney
Birth Date:8 July 1957
Birth Place:Oregon, USA
Death Place:Sunnyvale, California, U.S.
Spouse:Noemi Bolvary
Alma Mater:Caltech, Cornell
Occupation:Physicist and Inventor
Employer:IBM, Hitachi GST, Western Digital

Bruce Alvin Gurney (8 July 1957 – 20 October 2023) was an American physicist responsible for pioneering advances in magnetic recording. In particular, he was central to the development of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) sensors first used in hard disk drives in 1997.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Education and career

Bruce Gurney was born in Oregon, USA, but grew up and was educated in San Diego, California. He attended the Will C. Crawford High School. He received a B.S. in physics from Caltech in 1979 and an M.S. in physics from Cornell in 1982. He completed a Ph.D. at Cornell on surface science in 1987.[8]

In 1987, Gurney joined IBM in San Jose working on thin-film deposition and characterization. He was a coinventor on the original spin-valve (GMR) patent.[9] In 1991, Gurney moved to the IBM Almaden Research Center where he oversaw the transfer of spin-valve technology into development and into manufacturing. Gurney continued to lead research efforts on advanced read heads as the IBM HDD division was purchased first by Hitachi in 2003 then subsequently coming under Western Digital in 2013. During this time, he contributed to magnetic tunnel junction read head technology, spin-torque oscillator writer design for Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR), and also media technology (Anti-Ferromagnetically Coupled (AFC) media and bit-patterned media).

Awards and Honors

In 1992, Gurney shared in an IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for the development of spin valves. In 2000, Gurney became a Fellow of the American Physical Society for "leadership in the invention, implementation, and investigation of spin valve and giant magnetoresistive materials for recording sensors, and innovations in spin dependent transport and other phenomena in ferromagnetic layered structure".[10] [11] In 2004, Bruce Gurney and Virgil Speriosu received the IEEE_Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award for "For key technical contributions to the development of spin valve giant magnetoresistive recording heads for computer data storage devices.".[12] [13]

In 2014, Gurney was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)[14] for "contributions to spin valve Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) sensors for magnetic recording systems".

Gurney was an active member of the IEEE Magnetics Society and served in various capacities including Awards Chair. In particular, he chaired the 2016 joint MMM-Intermag Conference in San Diego[15]

In 2019, Gurney, together with Virgil Speriosu, Bernard Dieny, and Mustafa Pinarbasi participated in an oral history conducted by Christopher Bajorek on the "Invention, Development and Commercialization of GMR Heads" at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California.[16] [17]

Gurney has authored or coauthored numerous scientific publications[18] and patents.[19] Most of the research focussed on nanotechnology and on read sensors and media for magnetic recording.

Notes and References

  1. https://ieeemagnetics.org/files/ieeemagnetics/2023-12/IEEEMagSoc-N-63-1-2023-PDF-revised2.pdf M. Carey, J. Childress, "In Memoriam: Bruce A. Gurney", IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter, pp. 5-6, December 2023
  2. https://d1yx3ys82bpsa0.cloudfront.net/groups/ibm-deskstar-16gp-disk-drive.pdf Computer History Museum: First use of Giant Magneto Resistive (GMR) heads in a commercial product, IBM Deskstar 16GP, 1997
  3. https://www.ed-thelen.org/RAMAC/20170810_S302B_Grochowski.pdf E. Grochowski, "Hard Disk Drives: The Giants of the Storage Industry: Bruce Gurney", Flash Memory Summit, Santa Clara, 2017
  4. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8302649 L. Geppert, "Innovations: A giant leap for disk drives", IEEE Spectrum, p. 24, March 1998
  5. https://www.proquest.com/docview/252631192/9A4018D10ADA453CPQ P. De Groot, "Research lab pushes limits of data storage" Edmonton Journal; Edmonton, Alberta, 01 Oct 1998: Final edition
  6. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=fa97da679d9977813a1ca2cf0cf4dbac6488665b B. A. Gurney, "Giant Magnetoresistance in Magnetic Recording", AAPPS Bulletin December 2008, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 18-23
  7. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5389313 C. H. Tsang, R. E. Fontana, T. Lin, D. E. Heim, B. A. Gurney and M. L. Williams, "Design, fabrication, and performance of spin-valve read heads for magnetic recording applications," IBM Journal of Research and Development, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 103-116, Jan. 1998, doi: 10.1147/rd.421.0103. (includes short bio.)
  8. https://catalog.library.cornell.edu/catalog/1016794 Bruce Alvin Gurney, "Kinetics of structural and chemical transformations of adsorbates obtained with a time-resolved electron energy loss spectrometer", Cornell Ph.D. Theses, QC10 1987 G981, 1987
  9. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5206590A/en B. Gurney et al., "Magnetoresistive sensor based on the spin valve effect", US Patent 5206590A, filed 11 Dec. 1990
  10. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200003/upload/honors00.pdf 1999 APS Fellows: Gurney, Bruce Alvin
  11. https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/APS/db649d51-499a-402b-852f-984d1e042858/UploadedImages/march00.pdf Minutes APS Business Meeting Tuesday 21 March 2000
  12. https://ieeemagnetics.org/ieee-technical-field-award/ieee-reynold-b-johnson-information-storage-systems-award IEEE Magnetics: Rey B. Johnson Award: list of recipients
  13. https://web.archive.org/web/20200715071318/https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/awards/info_storage_rl.pdf IEEE REYNOLD B. JOHNSON INFORMATION STORAGE SYSTEMS AWARD RECIPIENTS: 2004: Bruce Gurney and Virgil Speriosu
  14. Web site: 2014 elevated fellow. https://web.archive.org/web/20131213225100/http://www.ieee.org/2014Fellowclass. dead. 13 December 2013. IEEE Fellows Directory.
  15. https://ieeemagnetics.org/files/ieeemagnetics/2022-05/IEEEMS-N-56-2-APR%202016.pdf "MMM-INTERMAG 2016 Plenary Session", IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter, Vol. 56, No. 2, p. 11, April 2016
  16. https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102781312 Computer History Museum: Oral History, "Invention, development and commercialization of GMR Heads", 2019-05-30: video
  17. https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102781311 Computer History Museum: Oral History, "Invention, development and commercialization of GMR Heads" 2019-05-30: transcript
  18. https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/B-A-Gurney-6349784 Researchgate: B. A. Gurney research publications
  19. https://patents.justia.com/inventor/bruce-a-gurney Justia: Bruce A. Gurney patents

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