Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory

Name: Group of Magnetic and Superconducting Materials at Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden [ web ]

Contact: J. Aarts

Description: The Magnetic & Superconducting Materials (MSM) group investigates superconducting and magnetic properties of materials mainly in the form of thin films, with the aim of exploiting strain, artificial structuring, or the combination of different functionalities in order to study novel physical phenomena. The study involves conventional metals as well as oxide materials, and recently new projects on nanoscale electronic properties of graphene, beam-induced modification of nanotubes, nanodeposition of metals and nanoetching and modification of substrates started up. A wide range of techniques and facilities are used in the research activity. In the Leiden Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory tradition, most of the work in the samples characterization involves low temperatures.

In order to prepare very pure, high quality ultrathin films, and artificial heterostructures with high quality interfaces a deep expertise has been acquired in the fabrication processes, mainly dc -rf sputtering, and e-beam, carried out in high (UV) and ultra high vacuum (UHV) regimes. Both metallic and oxide films, are routinely investigated by means of X-Ray, transmission electron microscopy and high resolution and low energy scanning electron microscopy. Working with nanostructured and low dimensionality materials, requires reliable thin film processing, which in the MSM group can be carried out in a 1000 class clean room using optical and e-beam lithography, wet and dry etching (oxygen plasma and reactive ion etching).

Researchers involved in the mobility plan: J. Aarts, F. Galli, M. Hesselberth

 

School of Physics & Astronomy

Name: Oxide Physics Group of the School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St. Andrews [ web ]

Contact: A. Mackenzie

Description: The research program of the Oxide Physics Group at the University of St. Andrews comprises the research areas: unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality, electronic structure in low-dimensional materials – bulk de Haas-van Alphen studies combined with surface Angle Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy, fabrication of high purity materials, and interface with theoretical physics. The research focuses on the formation and analysis of novel many-body quantum ground states in complex metal oxides. These novel quantum phases have been shown to be extremely sensitive to impurity scattering and would not form if the scattering rates are too high.
In this frame, the main achievements of the group has been to suitably get an optimal interplay between the growth of high quality single crystals of the materials under research and the ability of investigating their properties in the temperature range from 50 mK to 300 K.

Researchers involved in the mobility plan: A. Mackenzie and C. Hooley.

 

Institute for Advanced Simulation

Name: Group of Realistic Theory of Strongly Correlated Systems, Institut für Festkörperforschung and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungzentrum Jülich [ web ]

Contact: E. Pavarini

Description: The research program of the Group of Realistic Theory for Strongly Correlated Systems comprises the investigation of emergent phenomena occurring in systems in which the electron-electron repulsion is large. Understanding these phenomena is one of the central issues in solid state physics. The rich variety of emergent behaviors is the result of the interplay between Coulomb repulsion orbital, spin, charge degrees of freedom and chemistry. Research focus is on the understanding of such interplay.
Expertise and interest in advanced materials and complex phenomena include: transition-metal oxides, high temperature superconducting cuprates, Mott physics, spin orbital and charge ordering, NMR and Resonant X ray scattering experiments in correlated materials, highly frustrated systems. The computational competences deal with different type of targets and approaches: constructing ab-initio many-body models, electronic structure methods, Wannier functions, many-body techniques (dynamical mean-field theories, quantum Monte-Carlo, variational methods, scaling), combination of electronic structure and many-body methods.

Researchers involved in the mobility plan: E. Pavarini and E. Gorelov

Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics

Name: Institute of Theoretical Physics at the at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden [ web ]

Contact: J. Van den Brink

Description: The research program of the Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics is jointly set up with the scientists of the four experimental IFW institutes. It comprises the research areas: superconductivity & superconductors, magnetism and magnetic materials, molecular nanostructures and molecular solids, metastable alloys, stress-driven architectures and phenomena. Focus is on materials that exhibit particular interesting physical behavior, like magnetism or superconductivity, or that are newly discovered substances promising interesting properties. The Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics comprises many scientists working on, in particular: fundamentals of density functional theory, developing the full-potential local-orbital minimum-basis band-structure methods, connection of density functional and model theories, theory of superconductivity and low-dimensional magnetism, organic electronics and electrochemistry of conducting polymers phenomenological models and simulation of nanomagnetism.

Researchers involved in the mobility plan: J. van den Brink, M. Daghofer, K. Wohlefeld, C. Ortix.

 

University of Twente

Name: Group of Research in Advanced Inorganic Materials at the University of Twente, Twente [ web ]

Contact: G. Rijnders

Description: The research group of Inorganic Materials Science of the Faculty Science and Technology of the University of Twente is involved in different aspects of the science and technology of inorganic materials. The research is focused on the following activities: 1) physical materials science & artificials materials, 2) chemical materials science & nanostructured materials, 3) novel devices and applications, 4) interface science and thin film technology. During the last decade a tremendous progress has been made in the fabrication of (complex) oxide thin films. To name a few, these are the epitaxial growth technique, understanding of the properties of their defect structure, atomic-level control of their layering, the manipulation of the oxygen contents and dopant densities, etc. With the development of pulsed laser deposition with control at an atomic level using high-pressure reflection high-energy electron diffraction the TWE group is able to control the growth of these materials and introduced new growth manipulation techniques, like pulsed laser interval deposition. Most of the work in the Inorganic Materials Science is devoted towards application in novel devices. The primary goal of the TWE group is to elucidate the effects of size, structure, and interface of atomically controlled nanostructures made from (sometimes artificially constructed) complex materials, with special attention to properties such as conductivity, spin polarization, ferroelectricity, and optical nonlinearity.

Researchers involved in the mobility plan: G. Rijnders, G. Koster, A. Golubov

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