Today was a very exciting first for our group – two papers being published on the same day!
Kate’s paper has been published in npj Quantum Materials on one of our groups favourite materials, Barlowite!
Kate has explored how the dynamics of the magnetic ground state evolve across the Zn-barlowite series by combining muon spin rotation and relaxation studies (μSR) with density functional theory (DFT) calculations.
Kate has found that there are two stopping sites within her μSR measurement; μ-F and μ-OH, which have been verified by our computational collaborators in Prof Tom Lancaster’s group using state-of-the-art DFT calculations. This leads to a suppression of magnetic order, culminating in a dynamically fluctuating state at all temperatures when the interlayer zinc content is larger than 50%.
Aly’s paper has been published in Physical Review Materials for his work on two polymorphs of the Ti3+ hybrid coordination framework.
Aly has combined single crystal X-ray and neutron powder diffraction, magnetisation and specific heat measurements and DFT calculations to explore the chemical and magnetic structures of the α and β phases of our oxolate materials.
Aly has created α and β phases that adopted the square and diamond structures respectively. Magnetisation data reveal both polymorphs generate slight magnetic frustration, but dominant antiferromagnetic interactions lead them to order. We also explored the magnitude of the exchange couplings with DFT calculations performed by Dr Alexander Tsirlin. This work is a continuation of the work Lucy started as a post-doc in Prof Peter Lightfoot’s group.
Congratulations Kate and Aly!!!
Clark Group 