Christopher Leighton is a British physicist. He is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota.
Leighton holds a BSc in physics (1994) and a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics (1998) from Durham University. From 1998 to 2001, he was a postdoc in material physics at the University of California, San Diego.
Leighton was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2012 and an IEEE Fellow in 2020. His research revolves around the electronic and magnetic properties of a wide range of novel materials, including complex oxides, oxide heterostructures, metallic spintronics, complex alloys, organic conductors, and photovoltaics.