Overview of Ph.D Project

During my Ph.D. I investigated the magnetic properties of the geometrically frustrated SrLn₂O₄ (Ln = Nd, Gd, Dy, Ho, Er) materials with a particular focus on the Nd, Gd and Er variants of the family. The effect of magnetic frustration on these systems often results in the establishment of complex magnetic structures stabilised at temperatures approaching absolute zero, spin liquids states have also been reported for a few members of the family. These materials are also know to host the magnetic ions within two slightly different crystallographic environments leading to the establishment of two types of magnetic phases in the system at low temperature. These two magnetic orders are also displaying clearly different physics when subjected to external magnetic fields.

My research activities involved sample synthesis (polycrystalline and single crystal sample preparations), sample characterisation using specific heat and magnetic susceptibility measurements but mainly focused on performing neutron scattering experiments. During this project, neutron scattering data were collected on several single crystal and powder diffractometers at the ILL (D20, D2B, D7, D4, D10, D9, CYCLOPS) and ISIS (WISH) facilities giving me the opportunity to familiarise myself with instrumental techniques and to build up a strong expertise in the data analysis.

My research was performed as part of a scientific collaboration between the University of Warwick (supervision Dr Oleg Petrenko) and the Institut Laue-Langevin (supervision Dr Navid Qureshi).

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Current Role

Post Doctoral Research Associate working in the Division of Materials Science & Engineering at Ames Laboratory.

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Publications

Write to

Simon Riberolles
Postdoc Research Associate
Division of Materials Science & Engineering
A520 Zaffarano
USA

Contact Details

Telephone 515-294-5655

E-Mail simonr at ameslab dot gov