Energy & Electronic Materials

We create new materials that have desirable functional properties or that exhibit interesting emergent phenomena and we study these materials with a wide range of experimental techniques. Outputs rang

FABILIS: FABrication with Ionic Liquid Ion SourcesWe develop new nanomanufacturing technologies based on ionic liquids.   Ionic liquids are mixtures of positive and negatively charged ions that are li

We develop and apply computational methods to study defects and defect related processes in solids and at interfaces. Of particular interest are metal/oxide/semiconductor and other hetero-structures u

We develop and apply methods to allow large scale calculations on the atomic and electronic structure of materials, concentrating on semiconductor surfaces, and more recently on ferroelectric materials such as PbTiO3.  Standard approaches to these calculations are limited in the size of problem that can be studied to a few hundred atoms, but our methods allow calculations of up to 10,000 atoms with no approximation, and over 1,000,000 atoms with specific, well-controlled approximations.   This allows us to address problems which are complex and interesting, such as the polarisation texture in thin films of PbTiO3 on SrTiO3 substrates.

Our group carries out research to advance the predictive power of atom-scale computer simulations of materials and (bio)molecules.  We also develop multi-scale models that bridge the gap between the atomistic and the experimentally relevant time and length scales.  We have a keen interest to apply our methodologies to understand, at a fundamental level, the mechanisms of energy conversion processes in (opto-)electronic materials and to uncover structure-function relations that may help guide the design of improved materials.  Recent projects include (i) the development of non-adiabatic molecular dynamics techniques for time-propagation of charge carriers and excitons in organic semiconductors (ii) the development of machine learning methodologies to accelerate ab-initio molecular dynamics with applications to solvation, redox- and electro-chemistry (iii) the development of density functional theory methodologies for the calculation of current-voltage characteristics of proteins in electronic junctions relevant for bioelectronic applications.

We investigate the fascinating physical phenomena that emerge in nanoscale complex oxides. Using physical vapour deposition methods, we create artificially layered materials and study their structure and functional properties using a variety of experimental techniques, including scanning probe microscopy, laboratory and synchrotron x-ray scattering, dielectric impedance spectroscopy and others. For example, by tailoring the electrostatic and mechanical boundary conditions in ferroelectric superlattices that consist of alternating layers of ferroelectric and non-ferroelectric oxides, each just a few atomic monolayers thick, we can engineer complex nanoscale polarisation textures that are not possible in bulk materials. These polar textures can be very responsive to applied electric fields and lead to unusual phenomena, such as negative capacitance, which could pave a way to more power-efficient electronics.

Our research aims to understand and control the properties of a wide range of functional materials, by building up a picture of where the atoms are what the atoms do. We are particularly interested in

The Perry group specializes in the measurement of properties in functional materials. Functional materials, broadly defined, encompass solid systems with physical properties that can be engineered to

Our group is mainly concerned with understanding quantum-coherent phenomena in solids and nanostructures.  We are particularly interested in how the solid environment forms an ‘open system’ that cause