Matthew O’Brien was an Honours student worked in Prof. Oleg Sushkov’s group at UNSW. He studied the effects of enhanced thermal and quantum fluctuations in 2D quantum anti-ferromagnetic systems. Matthew uses quantum field-theoretical techniques to calculate the spectral characteristics of magnon quasiparticles, in order to better understand the fundamental magnetic properties of atomically-thin materials. Magnetic thin films are of great practical interest in spintronics research, in part due to the existence of topologically protected excitations known as skyrmions.