New Electronic Materials from Extreme Conditions
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Chemistry
Abstract
The discovery of new correlated-electron ground states such as new types of superconductor and magnet that may underpin future technologies, e.g. for computer memories, is a challenge requiring the combined skills of chemists, physicists, materials scientists and engineers. Exciting discoveries in recent years have included high temperature cuprate and pnictide superconductors, and colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) manganites. The prediction of such properties is, however, notoriously difficult and many high impact discoveries have been made serendipitously e.g. superconductivity in MgB2. Our more targeted approach is to use extreme conditions to facilitate the discovery of new electronic materials. High pressure-temperature synthesis provides dense new materials in which electron correlations are enhanced and may be altered by chemical doping. Careful tuning of low temperatures, high pressures and high magnetic fields can then be used to push materials to the tipping points where new electronic ground states form. The applicants have strong backgrounds in different disciplines that will be combined to achieve our ambitious goal of discovering new materials with notable properties.
Support through this Platform award will add considerable value to the existing arrangement. It will ensure continuity for our core group of key staff and the essential research expertise that they bring. We will have the flexibility to respond to major developments and explore speculative but potentially rewarding new directions. It will provide a high profile for our electronic materials research group as a distinct entity within the broader programme of CSEC. Current international collaborations will be strengthened by involving the whole Platform team, and will facilitate new links to other internationally-leading groups. Inviting research lecturers and exchanging research staff with such groups will be a further benefit. The Platform award will also augment the cross-disciplinary nature of the training that we can provide to our students and PDRA's. Although they (and we) formally belong to three separate UoE Schools, working together in the same institute and henceforth as a common group will provide a stimulating atmosphere to generate new ideas and discoveries in electronic materials research.
Support through this Platform award will add considerable value to the existing arrangement. It will ensure continuity for our core group of key staff and the essential research expertise that they bring. We will have the flexibility to respond to major developments and explore speculative but potentially rewarding new directions. It will provide a high profile for our electronic materials research group as a distinct entity within the broader programme of CSEC. Current international collaborations will be strengthened by involving the whole Platform team, and will facilitate new links to other internationally-leading groups. Inviting research lecturers and exchanging research staff with such groups will be a further benefit. The Platform award will also augment the cross-disciplinary nature of the training that we can provide to our students and PDRA's. Although they (and we) formally belong to three separate UoE Schools, working together in the same institute and henceforth as a common group will provide a stimulating atmosphere to generate new ideas and discoveries in electronic materials research.
Planned Impact
Overview
Both electronic materials and the extreme conditions technologies used to prepare and study them are important to diverse communities. New superconductors have impact from fundamental physics through chemistry and materials science to applications in SQUID's and practical conductors. Measurements e.g. of magnetisation under pressure, are important to many scientists and new inserts for standard measurement platforms may be commercialised. Trained scientists with PhD and postdoctoral experience are valuable to the UK economy particularly in the materials sector. Outreach activities featuring electronic materials and extreme conditions are of interest to the public and can prove inspiring to school children.
Materials Impacts
The impact of materials discoveries is initially in the scientific community, but then spreads into the commercial sector, e.g. superconductivity research on high-Tc cuprate and MgB2 materials has resulted in cables, SQUID electronics, microwave devices, fault current limiters, and levitated devices such as flywheels for energy storage.
Technological Impacts
To discover, study and optimise the electronic properties of matter it is important to be able to measure over ranges of temperature, pressure and magnetic field. We have applied modern computational FEA methods to the design of high pressure inserts for standard measurement platforms and our initial results are very encouraging - a prototype magnetometer cell has enabled measurements to be made up to 10 GPa pressure, an order of magnitude higher than is possible with conventional cells, and new non-metallic cells using engineering polymers offer high pressure AC magnetisation measurements.
Commercialisation
Potential commercialisation of processes or equipment will be investigated by working with CSEC's Knowledge Transfer Officer and IP will be protected through patent applications with ERI (Edinburgh Research and Innovation). Some of the developed equipment will be of immediate use to the scientific community, e.g. HP inserts for DC and AC susceptibility measurements within standard SQUID magnetometers. We will approach equipment suppliers such as Elliot Scientific (UK) to investigate possibilities of manufacturing the inserts ourselves through investment in our in-house workshop facilities via a spin-out, or licensing the manufacture to the supplier or a third party. Commercialisation of our previously developed technology is exemplified by the recent first sale of an electronic micro-spot welder.
Training Impacts
This Platform project will have a strong training impact through support for several PDRA's. By providing them with continuity of employment between grants and the opportunity to explore more risky ideas as short Exploratory projects, they will gain confidence in generating and implementing their own ideas beyond what is possible through standard Responsive Mode projects. This will benefit their future careers in universities or industry, or in related careers such as teaching, commerical or public service jobs. In addition to the training of the PDRA's employed on the grant, we estimate that 20-30 other PDRA's and PhD students will also benefit from the integrated research environment that we will be able to offer our co-workers with Platform support.
Outreach
Results from this project will contribute to our outreach activities that communicate high pressure science and technology to the public. Recent activities have included talks at international science fairs in the UK and Russia, participation in Royal Society summer exhibitions, and a demonstration of high pressure experiments on Scottish TV. Many of the above events are aimed at school age children for whom demonstrations of a magnet levitated by a superconductor or 'elephants in stilettos' ideas of high pressure provide an inspiration for future scientific studies and careers.
Both electronic materials and the extreme conditions technologies used to prepare and study them are important to diverse communities. New superconductors have impact from fundamental physics through chemistry and materials science to applications in SQUID's and practical conductors. Measurements e.g. of magnetisation under pressure, are important to many scientists and new inserts for standard measurement platforms may be commercialised. Trained scientists with PhD and postdoctoral experience are valuable to the UK economy particularly in the materials sector. Outreach activities featuring electronic materials and extreme conditions are of interest to the public and can prove inspiring to school children.
Materials Impacts
The impact of materials discoveries is initially in the scientific community, but then spreads into the commercial sector, e.g. superconductivity research on high-Tc cuprate and MgB2 materials has resulted in cables, SQUID electronics, microwave devices, fault current limiters, and levitated devices such as flywheels for energy storage.
Technological Impacts
To discover, study and optimise the electronic properties of matter it is important to be able to measure over ranges of temperature, pressure and magnetic field. We have applied modern computational FEA methods to the design of high pressure inserts for standard measurement platforms and our initial results are very encouraging - a prototype magnetometer cell has enabled measurements to be made up to 10 GPa pressure, an order of magnitude higher than is possible with conventional cells, and new non-metallic cells using engineering polymers offer high pressure AC magnetisation measurements.
Commercialisation
Potential commercialisation of processes or equipment will be investigated by working with CSEC's Knowledge Transfer Officer and IP will be protected through patent applications with ERI (Edinburgh Research and Innovation). Some of the developed equipment will be of immediate use to the scientific community, e.g. HP inserts for DC and AC susceptibility measurements within standard SQUID magnetometers. We will approach equipment suppliers such as Elliot Scientific (UK) to investigate possibilities of manufacturing the inserts ourselves through investment in our in-house workshop facilities via a spin-out, or licensing the manufacture to the supplier or a third party. Commercialisation of our previously developed technology is exemplified by the recent first sale of an electronic micro-spot welder.
Training Impacts
This Platform project will have a strong training impact through support for several PDRA's. By providing them with continuity of employment between grants and the opportunity to explore more risky ideas as short Exploratory projects, they will gain confidence in generating and implementing their own ideas beyond what is possible through standard Responsive Mode projects. This will benefit their future careers in universities or industry, or in related careers such as teaching, commerical or public service jobs. In addition to the training of the PDRA's employed on the grant, we estimate that 20-30 other PDRA's and PhD students will also benefit from the integrated research environment that we will be able to offer our co-workers with Platform support.
Outreach
Results from this project will contribute to our outreach activities that communicate high pressure science and technology to the public. Recent activities have included talks at international science fairs in the UK and Russia, participation in Royal Society summer exhibitions, and a demonstration of high pressure experiments on Scottish TV. Many of the above events are aimed at school age children for whom demonstrations of a magnet levitated by a superconductor or 'elephants in stilettos' ideas of high pressure provide an inspiration for future scientific studies and careers.
Organisations
Publications
Zentková M
(2015)
Raman spectroscopy and magnetic properties of KMCr(CN) 6 under pressure
in High Pressure Research
Yin C
(2019)
Cation-ordered Pb2-xBixMnO4 solid solutions with magnetic frustration
in Journal of Solid State Chemistry
Xiong P
(2018)
Charge Disproportionation in Sr0.5Bi0.5FeO3 Containing Unusually High Valence Fe3.5.
in Inorganic chemistry
Wang X
(2014)
Use of an advanced composite material in construction of a high pressure cell for magnetic ac susceptibility measurements
in High Pressure Research
Solana-Madruga E
(2021)
Complex magnetism in Ni3TeO6-type Co3TeO6 and high-pressure polymorphs of Mn3-xCoxTeO6 solid solutions.
in Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)
Solana-Madruga E
(2021)
Mn3MnNb2O9: high-pressure triple perovskite with 1 : 2 B-site order and modulated spins.
in Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)
Solana-Madruga E
(2016)
Double Double Cation Order in the High-Pressure Perovskites MnRMnSbO6.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Solana-Madruga E
(2018)
Anisotropic magnetic structures of the Mn R MnSbO 6 high-pressure doubly ordered perovskites ( R = La , Pr, and Nd)
in Physical Review B
Solana-Madruga E
(2021)
Ferrimagnetism and spin reorientation in the high-pressure double double perovskites Ca Mn Cr Sb O 6 and Ca Mn Fe Sb O 6
in Physical Review Materials
Solana-Madruga E
(2020)
Unconventional magnetism in the high pressure 'all transition metal' double perovskite Mn2NiReO6.
in Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)
Sarte PM
(2020)
Magnetic fluctuations and the spin-orbit interaction in Mott insulating CoO.
in Journal of physics. Condensed matter : an Institute of Physics journal
Sarte P
(2018)
Disentangling orbital and spin exchange interactions for Co 2 + on a rocksalt lattice
in Physical Review B
Sarte P
(2019)
Spin-orbit excitons in CoO
in Physical Review B
Sarte P
(2018)
Ordered magnetism in the intrinsically decorated j eff = 1 2 a - CoV 3 O 8
in Physical Review B
Saito T
(2014)
Symmetry-breaking 60°-spin order in the A -site-ordered perovskite LaM n 3 V 4 O 12
in Physical Review B
Saito T
(2017)
G -type antiferromagnetic order in the metallic oxide LaC u 3 C r 4 O 12
in Physical Review B
Ridley CJ
(2015)
A novel compact three-dimensional laser-sintered collimator for neutron scattering.
in The Review of scientific instruments
Pinkowicz D
(2015)
Enforcing Multifunctionality: A Pressure-Induced Spin-Crossover Photomagnet.
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Perversi G
(2018)
Frustration wave order in iron(II) oxide spinels
in Communications Physics
Pachoud E
(2020)
Correction to "Charge Order and Negative Thermal Expansion in V 2 OPO 4 "
in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Pachoud E
(2020)
Site-selective doping of ordered charge states in magnetite.
in Nature communications
Okamoto Y
(2013)
Breathing pyrochlore lattice realized in A-site ordered spinel oxides LiGaCr4O8 and LiInCr4O8.
in Physical review letters
O'Neill C
(2019)
Possible topological contribution to the anomalous Hall effect of the noncollinear ferromagnet Fe 3 Sn 2
in Physical Review B
O'Neill C
(2020)
Changes of Fermi surface topology due to the rhombohedral distortion in SnTe
in Physical Review B
Mihalik M
(2015)
Raman spectroscopy of NdFeO 3 at pressures up to 11 GPa
in High Pressure Research
McNally G
(2020)
Evolution of cation and spin orders in the double-double-double perovskite series Ca x Mn 2 - x FeReO 6
in Physical Review Materials
McNally G
(2017)
Complex Ferrimagnetism and Magnetoresistance Switching in Ca-Based Double Double and Triple Double Perovskites
in Chemistry of Materials
Mazur M
(2018)
Pressure-induced chemistry for the 2D to 3D transformation of zeolites
in Journal of Materials Chemistry A
Lazurova J
(2015)
Magnetic Properties and Mössbauer spectroscopy of NdFe 1-x Mn x O 3
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Lane H
(2021)
Two-dimensional ferromagnetic spin-orbital excitations in honeycomb VI 3
in Physical Review B
Kusmartseva A
(2017)
Bistability and relaxor ferrimagnetism in off-stoichiometric NiCrO3
in Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
Kloß SD
(2021)
Low-dimensional magnetism in calcium nitridonickelate(II) Ca2NiN2.
in Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)
Kepa MW
(2016)
Piston cylinder cell for high pressure ultrasonic pulse echo measurements.
in The Review of scientific instruments
Kearins P
(2021)
Cluster Spin Glass Formation in the Double Double Perovskite CaMnFeTaO 6
in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Johnston H
(2018)
Dimensional crossover of correlated anion disorder in oxynitride perovskites.
in Chemical communications (Cambridge, England)
Ji K
(2021)
Double Double to Double Perovskite Transformations in Quaternary Manganese Oxides.
in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Ji K
(2021)
Double Double to Double Perovskite Transformations in Quaternary Manganese Oxides
in Angewandte Chemie
Injac S
(2020)
Studies of the 4d and 5d 6H perovskites Ba3BM2O9, B = Ti, Zn, Y; M = Ru, Os, and cubic BaB1/3Ru2/3O3 polymorphs stabilised under high pressure.
in Dalton transactions (Cambridge, England : 2003)
Huxley A
(2015)
Ferromagnetic superconductors
in Physica C: Superconductivity and its Applications
Hutchison I
(2015)
Polymorphism of a polymer precursor: metastable glycolide polymorph recovered via large scale high-pressure experiments
in CrystEngComm
Hosaka Y
(2016)
Charge and spin order in the perovskite CaF e 0.5 M n 0.5 O 3 : Charge disproportionation behavior of randomly arranged F e 4 +
in Physical Review B
Hong KH
(2018)
Cation, magnetic, and charge ordering in MnFe3O5.
in Journal of materials chemistry. C
Hong KH
(2018)
Complex Cation and Spin Orders in the High-Pressure Ferrite CoFe3O5.
in Inorganic chemistry
Hong KH
(2018)
Author Correction: Long range electronic phase separation in CaFe3O5.
in Nature communications
Hong K
(2018)
Long range electronic phase separation in CaFe3O5
in Nature Communications
Hong K
(2021)
Substitutional tuning of electronic phase separation in Ca Fe 3 O 5
in Physical Review Materials
Hong K
(2022)
Synthesis, Structure and Magnetic Properties of NiFe 3 O 5
in ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology
Hallas A
(2019)
Coexistence of metallic and nonmetallic properties in the pyrochlore Lu2Rh2O7
in npj Quantum Materials
Generalov A
(2017)
Insight into the temperature dependent properties of the ferromagnetic Kondo lattice YbNiSn
in Physical Review B
Description | New magnetoresistive double double perovskites have been synthesised using equipment and methods developed under this award. New understanding of spin-orbit coupling in transition metal oxides has emerged from collaboration with Dr Stock. |
Exploitation Route | Spintronics sector |
Sectors | Electronics |
Description | Discovery of new 'All Transition Metal' oxide double perovskites has influenced others working on spintronic and related perovskite materials. Many more such materials have been reported by us and other groups. Discovery of a new structure type of double double perovskites has also had impact as more such materials are discovered, some with potentially useful multiferroic properties. |
First Year Of Impact | 2017 |
Sector | Electronics,Energy |