EPSRC Equipment Account - Dr A Hector Enabling Microfocus

Project overview

X-ray diffraction is the main technique by which scientists and engineers study the structures of crystalline materials, however some sample types are often neglected due to the requirement for specialised instrumentation and expertise. This proposal provides advanced equipment to apply diffraction and related methods to a series of lesser-studied sample types of great importance in technology and in understanding environmental processes. These include thin layers of material on surfaces, where information about atomic separations, particle sizes, crystal orientation and changes in the size of the lattice due to interactions with the underlying material can be obtained. This will be critical to the understanding of a range of functional materials with applications in energy conversion and storage, electronics, optoelectronics and engineering. It will also be possible to study very small regions of a material, this is important in examination of single components or regions of a sample where variations are important in understanding properties. Sample types include minerals, where the structure of individual grains will contribute to knowledge of interactions with the environment, and single components of grids of material designed to have specific interactions with light.

Staff

Lead researchers

Professor Andrew Hector

Head of School

Research interests

Materials synthesis, including metal nitrides, thin film materials, sol-gel and solvothermal …
Materials characterisation – powder and thin film diffraction, microscopy and spectroscopy te…
Electrochemistry, including charge storage in battery and supercapacitor type cells, and elec…

Connect with Andrew

Email: A.L.Hector@soton.ac.uk

Other researchers

Dr Mark Light

Associate Professor

Research interests

Single crystal X-ray diffraction
Powder and materials X-ray diffraction
Total scattering and pair distribution function analysis

Connect with Mark

Email: M.E.Light@soton.ac.uk

Research outputs

Synthesis of vanadium nitride-hard carbon composites from cellulose and their performance for sodium ion batteries

Hang Cheng, Nuria Garcia-Araez & Andrew L. Hector, 2020, ACS Applied Energy Materials, 3(5), 4286-4294

DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.0c00003

Type: article

Using GISAXS to detect correlations between the locations of gold particles electrodeposited from aqueous solution

Gilles, Ernest Heinrich Karl Moehl, Philip N. Bartlett & Andrew L. Hector, 2020, Langmuir, 36(16), 4432-4438

DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.9b03400

Type: article

Thioether complexes of WSCl₄, WOCl₄ and WSCl₃ and evaluation of thiochloride complexes as CVD precursors for WS₂ thin films

Danielle E. Smith, Victoria Greenacre, Andrew L. Hector, William Levason, Gillian Reid, Fred Robinson, Shibin Thomas & Ruomeng Huang, 2020, Dalton Transactions, 49(8), 2496-2504

DOI: 10.1039/D0DT00068J

Type: article

The effect of organoclay loading and matrix morphology on charge transport and dielectric breakdown in an ethylene-based polymer blend

Allison, Vivienne Shaw, Alun Vaughan & Thomas Andritsch, 2019, Journal of Materials Science, 1-12

DOI: 10.1007/s10853-019-03765-5

Type: article

Synthesis of hard carbon-TiN/TiC composites by reacting cellulose with TiCl4 followed by carbothermal nitridation/reduction

Hang Cheng, Nuria Garcia-Araez, Andrew L. Hector & Samantha Soule, 2019, Inorganic Chemistry, 58(9), 5776-5786

DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.9b00116

Type: article

Electrodeposition of bismuth telluride from a weakly coordinating, non-aqueous solution

Lingcong Meng, Katarina Cicvarić, Andrew L. Hector, C.H. de Groot & Philip N. Bartlett, 2019, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 839, 134-140

DOI: 10.1016/j.jelechem.2019.03.021

Type: article

Ratcheting wear of a cobalt-chromium alloy during reciprocated self-mated dry sliding

P.S.G. Cross, G. Limbert, Dave Stewart & R.J.K. Wood, 2019, Wear, 426–427(Part B), 1142-1151

DOI: 10.1016/j.wear.2018.12.077

Type: article