Solid-state chemistry for transition-metal oxides: Exploring for new materials with novel functionalities

The discovery of new materials with outstanding properties motivates much of modern chemistry, physics and materials science. New materials with novel functionalities are also strongly demanded for developing future information and energy technologies. The general aim of our collaboration project is to discover new oxides having interesting and useful properties. Strong collaboration of materials synthesis teams and structure characterization teams will lead to development of "strategic solid-state chemistry".

This collaborative team consists of the following investigators;

Principal Investigator:
Prof. Yuichi Shimakawa (Japan)
Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University

Overseas Lead Investigators:
Prof. J. Paul Attfield (UK)
Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions and School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh.
Prof. Werner Paulus (France)
Institute Charles Gerhardt, University of Montpellier 2
Prof. Hidenori Takagi (Germany)
Max-Planck-Institute for solid state research, Stuttgart
Prof. Ru-Shi Liu (Taiwan)
Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University

Other Japanese groups (Hiroi, Tokyo and Kageyama, Kyoto) will also participate.

Approx. 50 people from these groups will be involved, and many more collaborators and interested scientists will have the opportunity to participate in meetings run by this consortium.

Both materials and the extreme conditions technologies used to prepare and study them are important to diverse
communities. New electronic and magnetic materials have impact from fundamental physics through chemistry and
materials science to applications in thin-film devices. Oxide/nitride ceramics are notable host materials for white-light LED applications. Trained scientists 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.

Discovery of new materials is important to solid state chemists, condensed matter physicists and materials scientists in academia and industry. Electronic and magnetic materials are essential to modern life but our fundamental understanding of the behaviour of correlated electrons that give rise to useful phenomena is still limited. Hence, their experimental exploration remains a very active field with surprising new discoveries made every few years. The impact of such discoveries is initially in the scientific community, but then spreads into the commercial sector. We will collaborate with leading international groups to explore conducting, magnetic (including magnetoresistance and multiferroic) and photoluminescence properties.

Although equipment development is not directly included in this project, the measurement activities will help to test new insert technologies being developed by CSEC colleagues. These new methods will have impact in the academic but also industrial research groups studying electronic properties.

Potential commercialisation of materials synthesis or properties will be investigated by working closely with CSEC's
Knowledge Transfer Officer. IP will be protected through patent applications with ERI (Edinburgh Research and
Innovation), the University of Edinburgh's research and commercialisation/technology transfer office.

Research results will be disseminated through collaborative publications in peer-reviewed journals. We have a strong track record in this respect. Manuscripts will additionally be posted on an Open Access archive website of the University of Edinburgh.