Joseph Alec Wilcox

My name is Joseph Wilcox. I am an experimental physicist working predominantly on the magnetic properties of unconventional superconductors. Since 2023, I have been working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Bath in the U.K with Professor Simon Bending. My expertise is in performing low temperature electrical and magnetic measurements, though I have further experience working with very high magnetic fields, large hydostatic pressures, heat capacity measurements, semiconductor processing / microfabrication techniques, and dry transfer of 2D materials.

I completed both my undergraduate degree (2014) and my PhD (2019) at the University of Bristol, U.K., with Professor Antony Carrington. During this time, I was interested in exploring the structure of the superconducting energy gap in unconventional superconducting materials using very low temperature magnetic measurements. After finishing my PhD, I stayed on as a postdoctoral researcher where I investigated the landscape of competing electronic orders in the cuprate superconductors using a combination of high magnetic fields and large hydrostatic pressures in order to suppress the very strong superconducting order parameter. During my time in Bristol, my greatest achievement was clearly demonstrating the existence of the non-linear Meissner effect - a phenonemon that had eluded observation for more than 30 years.

Most recently I have been investigating some unusual materials that exhibits coexisting superconductivity and magnetism - two phases of matter that tend to be mutually antagonistic. In one of these materials, the two orders are able to coexist over a wide range of temperature, giving rise to unsual and entirely novel magnetic behaviours. You can view a recording here 🎥 of my recent invited talk at the 38th International Symposium on Superconductivity (December 2025) where I present my recent results on this topic. Alternatively, you can view my recent publications on the topic, both in Communications Materials and Superconductor Science and Technology.