Designer Oxides: Reactive-Oxide Molecular Beam Epitaxy System

Advanced materials are a key enabling technology, lying at the heart of every new or improved device or technology application. Oxide-based materials hold enormous promise to deliver a step change across a multitude of technology sectors, with their rich physical properties making them ideal candidates to deliver transformative advances in areas spanning from heterogeneous catalysis to novel quantum electronics. To realise their full potential, however, it is necessary to develop ways to tune their physical properties in order to stablise a desired combination of materials characteristics "on demand" for a given application. We propose the creation of a world-wide unique facility for such a guided synthesis of designer oxide materials, paving the way to next generation oxide-based technologies.

The core of this new facility will be a state-of-the art reactive-oxide molecular-beam epitaxy system, enabling the growth of atomic-scale structured transition-metal oxide heterostructures and metastable thin films. It will be coupled to existing state-of-the-art spectroscopic probes including low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy and angle-resolved photoemission. This will provide unprecedented feedback on the atomic and electronic structure and the quantum many-body interactions at the heart of the exotic properties of many oxides, revealing how these can be tuned through custom materials growth to create new advanced materials. This will open new avenues for research in correlated electron systems, materials for energy storage and harvesting, catalysis, sensing, quantum technologies and nanoscience, all exploiting tailored states in artificial oxides. It will operate as a shared facility, which we aim to establish as a leading centre for the supply of custom oxide thin films within the UK.

The reactive-oxide molecular-beam epitaxy system proposed here will enable new advances in our ability to manipulate novel oxide quantum materials, providing new insights into their fundamental properties, and developing new approaches to create custom materials by design with optimized properties for future quantum technologies.

Potential beneficiaries in the commercial sector include a range of high-tech companies. Pyreos, GMI, Sasol and Johnson Matthey have already expressed interest in collaboration while more generally, future quantum-based technology has been identified as a major pillar of a UK high-tech economy, with a network of national hubs currently being developed. Materials grown in the oxide MBE proposed here have strong potential to become a key enabler of such technologies, as well as providing new advanced materials for energy recovery and storage devices, sensing, and catalysis.

To ensure awareness in relevant industry sectors, we will build on preexisting connections, for example through the industrial associates programme of the Condensed Matter DTC, and the St Andrews-based programme grant TOPNES, as well as making new contacts through relevant Knowledge Transfer Networks. The PI/co-Is will work with their dedicated School Research Business Development Manager Dr. Andy Liken and the Knowledge Transfer Centre to patent-protect and explore licensing opportunities for arising intellectual property (IP). Once any potentially valuable IP has been protected by patent applications, results shall be published in high quality international journals and presented at international conferences to ensure visibility and impact in the research community. These activities will also lead to the establishment of new commercial and academic relationships.
Training of PhD students and postdocs in the growth of materials and their subsequent characterization and nanofabrication will yield the next generation of highly-skilled personnel for research and development, both in academia and industry, forming an indispensible part of the "people pipeline". With a view on market development of quantum technologies based on advanced materials, key to the development of a successful industrial sector will be the availability of highly qualified personnel. Establishing such a workforce within the UK could prove a decisive criterion for multinationals in deciding where to base operations.
Beyond supplying professionals with relevant specialized skills, the research and training will supply the job market in the UK with highly trained and educated professionals with the skills to solve problems, think creatively and actively pursue challenging projects. For highly developed countries like the UK with often diminishing natural resources, the education of the work force is the key economic factor to maintain competitiveness in an increasingly globalized environment.
The wider public will be engaged through a dedicated website, media interviews, press releases and general and popular articles. The concepts of material design by MBE can be very well made understandable to lay public as atomic-scale LEGO. The project will benefit from related outreach activities of the Condensed Matter DTC and the programme grant TOPNES. We will apply for presentation of our research outputs at high-profile science fairs, such as the Royal Society Summer Exhibition.