Research at Solid State Dynamics Group

Quantum materials are a class of solids in which quantum mechanical effects are especially apparent, generating novel states of matter that often range among the least understood. The project is concerned with an experimental study of metallic materials hosting unconventional quantum fluctuations, which are predicted to give raise to some of these ambiguous quantum phenomena.

Quantum fluctuations prevent the formation of long-range order in two-dimensional systems but not necessarily inhibit long-range quantum entanglement. So-called quantum spin liquids are an elusive kind of magnetic phase with potential for technical applications in quantum computing and quantum telecommunication. This work aims to investigate the magnetic excitations and ground-state of the quantum spin liquid candidate YbBr₃.

In this project we focus on a class of molten salts, also known as ionic liquids (ILs). We study the dynamics of the ions on a molecular scale using quasielastic and inelastic neutron scattering techniques. The aim is an understanding of the correlation between molecular dynamics and the bulk properties of these liquids. Furthermore, we investigate magnetic interactions and excitations in liquid and solid magnetic ionic liquids.

Disorder can be a vital parameter for understanding the properties of condensed matter, or creating new functionalities.  Very often the disorder is assumed to be random and the associated correlations decay exponentially.  In this work we investigate structural and magnetic systems in which there is correlated disorder, for example spin systems on lattices that themselves have structural correlations that decay as a power law.