After three years of study in the Department of Physics at Warsaw University I decided to specialise in Solid State Physics. My scientific research included the study of electrical transport at high hydrostatic pressures in epitaxial CdTe layers doped with Br, as well as transport measurements of highly resistive CdTe epilayers, both grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). I presented the results of these two research projects at the 24th International School of Semiconducting Compounds, Jaszowiec, Poland, 1995, where I was awarded the Leonard Sosnowski prize (as "Outstanding Student of Solid State Physics"). In 1995 I also took part in Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) Summer Student Program in Hasylab Laboratory in Hamburg.

I have written my M.Sc. Diploma Thesis entitled "s,p-d Exchange Interaction in GaAs doped with Mn" in the group of Prof. Andrzej Twardowski, my present Ph.D. Thesis advisor. In this work I interpreted the results of magnetoreflection investigations of bulk GaAs crystals doped with manganese. A central feature of this work was the development of the model for the mechanism of ferromagnetic p-d exchange interaction between valence band electrons and magnetic acceptor centres which are created by manganese when it enters the GaAs lattice. In 1996 I graduated with the degree of Master of Science (with distinction).

Since September 1996 I have been a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Experimental Physics at Warsaw University. My Ph.D. research focuses on the investigation of diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs), i.e., semiconductors in which a part of the cation sublattice is replaced substitutionally by magnetic ions. My work focuses primarily on the III-V semiconductors doped with manganese and iron. Recent progress in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of III-V -based DMSs containing significant incorporation of Mn (such as InMnAs and GaMnAs) attracted interest around the world for two reasons. First the unique features of these materials which include carrier-induced high temperature ferromagnetism (up to 120 K) and giant magnetoresistance not observed in other DMS systems. And second, both these features hold promise of microelectronic device applications, both in spin-polarised transport and quantum computing. My own research includes measurements on bulk III-V DMS crystals, on MBE epilayers, as well as on multilayers of GaMnAs, GaMnSb, InMnAs, GaN:Mn, GaFeAs, and GaFeSb. In 1996 I held the post of the Project Manager for growth and characterisation of bulk GaMnSb crystals, under a grant from the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research.

In my scientific research I am interested in understanding the role which manganese and iron play in III-V semiconductors. In pursuit of that objective I perform magnetisation measurements using a SQUID magnetometer, magnetooptical measurements (absorption, reflection, Faraday rotation and magnetic circular dichroism), electron spin resonance (ESR) and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements, and electrical transport measurements in the materials identified above.

In addition to my work at Warsaw University I have had the opportunity to take advantage of several periods of practical training abroad. In August 1998 I spent one week at the University of Amsterdam (learning the Electron Spin Resonance technique in Van der Waals – Zeeman Institute). In November/December 1999 I left for a one-month practical training at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the University of Nijmegen (millimetre wave spectroscopy in high magnetic fields). And in February 2000 I spent one week of practical training at Tokyo University and Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba (learning crystal growth and applications of ferromagnetic semiconductors).

One of the results of my work has led to the interpretation of the magnetoabsorption experiments performed on GaMnAs epilayers. We interpreted the observed absorption band splitting in crystals with a high concentration of free carriers in external magnetic field, taking into account the antiferromagnetic p-d exchange interaction together with the Moss-Burstein effect. We also performed model calculations of band-to-band transitions based on this model, which provides a good qualitative description of our experimental results.

In collaboration with the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Science and of the Institute of Electronic Materials Technology in Warsaw I performed electron spin resonance measurements on MBE epilayers of GaMnAs and InMnAs. The results of these investigations have enabled us to establish the dominant charge state of the Mn impurity in GaMnAs and InMnAs epilayers as the Mn²⁺ state (d⁵ configuration). This information is crucial for understanding the phenomena observed in III-V-based alloys containing Mn, and is especially fundamental for pinpointing the origin of ferromagnetism in these materials.

The above results and their interpretation were published in several scientific papers, and were presented at a number of international conferences, as listed in the Supplementary Information Sheets.

My activity in Professional Societes is a follow. Since 1993 I have been a member of The Student Nonlinear Physics Research Group; since 1995 I have been a member of The Solid State Physics Students Research Group; and in 1999 I joined The Polish Physical Society.

I was invited to participate in the Polish Radio BIS programme "The word after next 50 years – physics" (14.11.2000). I've also give the interview for Polish Radio One (PR1) in the programme "The Evening with Radio One" (16.11.2000) as the laureate of the Domestic Fellowship for Young Scholars awarded by the Foundation for Polish Science.