{{Short description|American physicist and inventor}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}} {{Infobox person | name = Bruce Alvin Gurney | image = Bruce Gurney taken in Sacramento in 2009.jpg | caption = Gurney in 2009 | birth_date = {{birth date|1957|07|08|df=yes}} | birth_place = Oregon, USA | death_date = {{death date and age|2023|10|20|1957|07|08|df=yes}} | death_place = Sunnyvale, California, U.S. | spouse = Noemi Bolvary | alma_mater = Caltech, Cornell | occupation = Physicist and Inventor | employer = IBM, Hitachi GST, Western Digital | awards = {{ubil| *IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, 1998 *APS Fellow, 2000 *IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Award, 2004 *IEEE Fellow, 2014 }} }}
'''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.<ref>[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]</ref><ref>[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]</ref><ref>[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]</ref><ref>[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8302649 L. Geppert, "Innovations: A giant leap for disk drives", IEEE Spectrum, p. 24, March 1998]</ref><ref>[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]</ref><ref>[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]</ref><ref name="bio">[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.)]</ref>
== 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.<ref>[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]</ref>
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.<ref>[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]</ref> 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).<ref name="oral" /><ref name="patents" /><ref name="pubs" />
== Awards and honors ==
In 1992, Gurney shared in an IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for the development of spin valves.<ref name="bio" /> 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".<ref>[https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200003/upload/honors00.pdf 1999 APS Fellows: Gurney, Bruce Alvin]</ref><ref>[https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/APS/db649d51-499a-402b-852f-984d1e042858/UploadedImages/march00.pdf Minutes APS Business Meeting Tuesday 21 March 2000]</ref> 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.".<ref>[https://ieeemagnetics.org/ieee-technical-field-award/ieee-reynold-b-johnson-information-storage-systems-award IEEE Magnetics: Rey B. Johnson Award: list of recipients]</ref><ref>[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]</ref>
In 2014, Gurney was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ieee.org/2014Fellowclass|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213225100/http://www.ieee.org/2014Fellowclass|url-status=dead|archive-date=13 December 2013|title=2014 elevated fellow|website=IEEE Fellows Directory}}</ref> 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<ref>[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]</ref>
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.<ref name="oral">[https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102781312 Computer History Museum: Oral History, "Invention, development and commercialization of GMR Heads", 2019-05-30: video]</ref><ref>[https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102781311 Computer History Museum: Oral History, "Invention, development and commercialization of GMR Heads" 2019-05-30: transcript]</ref>
Gurney has authored or coauthored numerous scientific publications<ref name="pubs">[https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/B-A-Gurney-6349784 Researchgate: B. A. Gurney research publications ]</ref> and patents.<ref name="patents">[https://patents.justia.com/inventor/bruce-a-gurney Justia: Bruce A. Gurney patents]</ref> Most of the research focused on nanotechnology and on read sensors and media for magnetic recording.
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gurney, Bruce}} Category:Fellows of the IEEE Category:physicists from California Category:American physicists Category:1957 births Category:2023 deaths Category:California Institute of Technology alumni Category:Cornell University alumni