About Us
Diamond Light Source is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility. By accelerating electrons to near light-speed, Diamond generates brilliant beams of light from infra-red to X-rays which are used for academic and industry research and development across a range of scientific disciplines including structural biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, earth and environmental sciences.
The Project
Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) has emerged as a powerful spectroscopic technique and has been particularly influential in studying phenomena in compounds with strong SOC. Within a collaboration between Dr. Ke-Jin Zhou at Beamline I21 in the Diamond Light Source and Prof. Andrew Boothroyd at University of Oxford, you will exploit the RIXS technique to investigate strong SOC physics within two research themes. The first concerns excitonic Mott insulators with d4 electronic configuration, e.g., Ru4+ in Ca2RuO4 and Ca3Ru2O7. In the ideal case such d4 ions have a non-magnetic singlet ground state and a triplet excited state with inter-site interactions that create propagating excitations called triplons. The second theme explores ions with the d1 configuration in double perovskites, e.g. Ba2YMoO6, in which the spin and orbital angular momenta are highly entangled leading to strong orbital-dependent exchange and exotic magnetic order.
You will utilise a new capability at the Diamond Light Source to perform RIXS at the L-edges of transition-metal cations and K-edge of oxygen ligands to probe the low-energy magnetic excitations, the excitonic physics and crystal field splittings, and you will develop models to describe the observed spectra. Candidates are expected to have a good understanding of condensed matter physics and be motivated to develop advanced experimental skills and data modelling.
This project is jointly funded by the Diamond Light Source and Oxford University.
Further Information
Diamond Light Source Ltd holds an Athena SWAN Bronze Award, demonstrating their commitment to provide equal opportunities and to advance the representation of women in STEM/M subjects: science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine.
Diamond jointly funds around 15-20 studentships every year with a variety of collaborators from both academic institutions to industry partners. Students accepted onto these projects will be part of our yearly cohort intake and are supported by both their academic and Diamond supervisors, as well as a dedicated Student Engagement team based at Diamond.
Diamond studentships are typically 50% funded by Diamond and 50% by the partnering university institution (or 25% funded by Diamond if there is a third party collaborator). Students are therefore required to spend 50% of their studentship at Diamond, with most students relocating to the local area for this period. Support on suggested accomodation options are provided by Diamond.
Benefits of Diamond's jointly funded studentships
Further Information
If you have further questions please contact the Student Engagement team on diamond.students@diamond.ac.uk.
Further guidance for students can be found here as well as more information about life at Diamond found here.
Applications are now closed.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
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