Structural instabilities in strongly correlated electron systems

A great opportunity to study for a fully funded PhD while gaining valuable teaching experience.

6 years total duration, 0.5 FTE studying, 0.5 FTE teaching, compensated at currently £24983 p.a. pro-rata, therefore £12491. A student loan of up to £25000 in total over the six years may also be available to support this PhD (see Student Loans Company website for details).

Strongly correlated electron systems belong to the most intriguing and versatile materials. In these systems, competing interactions lead to the emergence of a multitude of exotic states, including unconventional superconductivity and magnetism, valence fluctuations, heavy fermions, Mott insulators, non-Fermi liquids, phases with charge stripes or a pseudogap. Here, subtle changes in chemical composition, pressure, temperature or magnetic field may tip the balance between the competing tendencies, resulting in huge responses to the stimuli. One example would be a colossal magnetoresistance, where enormous variations in resistance are produced by small changes in magnetic field strength. Other examples include temperature- or pressure-induced metal-insulator transitions. The strong competition between different phases is not only essential for applications, but it also increases the potential for novel electronic behavior.

In this project, you will investigate selected intermetallic compounds in which strong coupling between charge, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom leads to complex phase diagrams. The project will start with growing crystals using flux method in the newly developed synthesis lab at UCLAN. Structural and compositional characterization of grown phases will be carried using instruments available in the UCLAN Analytical Suite. In the next steps, detailed investigations of crystal structure by means of X-ray diffraction, absorption (EXAFS) and/or pair-distribution function measurements over broad temperature ranges and/or under high pressure will be proposed at world-leading research facilities, in a close collaboration with research groups from other universities. The experimental study will be supplemented by first principles computational simulations using state of the art electronic band structure codes such as FPLO or Wien2k.

About the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute
The Jeremiah Horrocks Institute is based in Preston as part of the University of Central Lancashire. Preston has a proud history of manufacturing and production including the cotton mills of the 1800s and the production of aircraft in the early 1960s. Preston was granted City Status by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2002.

The University of Central Lancashire has developed and evolved over time to become the fifth largest university in the UK. Founded in 1828 as the Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge by Joseph Livesey’s Temperance Society. In 1886 the institute was expanded under the endowment of a local lawyer, Edmund Robert Harris (1804-1877). The institute was renamed to the Harris Institute and expanded to take on several new buildings. The institute was renamed in 1932 as the Harris Art College and in 1952 was renamed again to become the Harris College. In 1973, the College was renamed to become Preston Polytechnic and then later Lancashire Polytechnic in 1984. In 1992, the full university status was awarded and the University of Central Lancashire came into existence.

The Jeremiah Horrocks Institute was established in 1993 as the Centre for Astrophysics. Renamed in 2004 as the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute (JHI) for Astrophysics and Super-Computing, the JHI grew in 2012 to become the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy. Already extremely well-regarded in astronomy and astrophysics research, the Institute has been investing in experimental physics since 2013 and now has a world-leading portfolio in nanophysics, strongly correlated electron systems, magnetic materials and magnetic modelling.