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Welcome to the website of the Gibbs Lab at the University of St Andrews. We are an interdisciplinary group working across the fields of chemistry, physics and crystallography and focusing on the interplay between crystal structure and physical properties in quantum and functional materials.

We explore these using a wide variety of experimental techniques, including:

  • Targeted synthesis of materials: high purity, single crystal of Sr2RuO4
    controlled disorder and chemical tuning
  • Neutron scattering for detailed studies of crystal structure and excitations
  • Isotope enrichment for optimised experimental insight from e.g. neutron scattering and NMR studies
  • Physical property studies such as low temperature transport, heat capacity, magnetometry including concurrent in-situ measurement during neutron diffraction measurements. This allows tuning of structural and physical properties using e.g. temperature, magnetic field and pressure allowing pinpointing of precise structure-property relationships.

Research interests:

We are interested in quantum and functional materials defined in a broad sense. These include, but are not limited to, low-dimensional and quantum magnets, materials with strong spin-orbit coupling, correlated metals, ferroelectrics and multiferroics and materials with unusual phase transitions.