perovskites – Yeung Research Group at UoB

Harry passes his PhD viva

Congratulations to Harry Lloyd, who passed his PhD viva with minor corrections today!

Harry did some excellent research into the structures and properties of MDABCO-based ferroelectric hybrid perovskites, principally using single crystal methods, and made several developments to the in-situ electric field cell at Diamond beamline I19. Part of his work was published in CrystEngComm, and there should be at least one more paper to come!

Many thanks to Emma McCabe and Peter Slater for examining his thesis, and to Mark Warren and Lucy Saunders, who co-supervised Harry from Diamond Lightsource beamline I19.

Here’s a post-viva proud supervisor picture of Mark, Harry and Hamish!

News

MSci project end

Our fourth-year MSci students, Will and Byron have handed in their theses and today we had a few drinks to celebrate. It seemed like only a short time ago they joined us but since October they’ve both done some really interesting experiments on materials formation, and uncovered some surprising facts about metal-organic frameworks and hybrid perovskites! Congratulations and good luck for the rest of the year (and beyond!), Byron and Will!

News

New MSci students start

The group has been joined by two new MSci students for their fourth-year research projects! Byron Read will be investigating the formation of hybrid perovskites, with a nod towards ionic conductivity, and Will Norman will be investigating the formation of metal-organic frameworks, comparing the effects of different components in the reactions. Welcome to the group, Byron (r) and Will (l)!

News

Welcome Hannah and Sophie!

This year we are lucky enough to be joined by Hannah Blakiston and Sophie Ray to do their MSci research projects with the group.

Sophie will be working on isolation and characterisation of intermediate clusters in MOF synthesis, while Hannah will be investigating phase behaviour and compositional trends in hybrid perovskites.

Papers

New MDABCO perovskites paper

Sam and Harry’s paper on MDABCO-based ABX₃ perovskites is now out in CrystEngComm!

These materials are very promising candidates for ferroelectric applications, owing to their ease of synthesis, flexibility and properties that rival existing materials, such as BaTiO₃. Sam and Harry discovered the single crystal structures of three new compositions, which help to define the design limits within which the ferroelectric pseudo-cubic perovskite phases form.

Congratulations Sam and Harry and thanks to all contributing authors!

Read the paper, which features in the 2022 New Talent Special Issue (Open Access) here.

Update: new cover art available too!