The 2019 recruitment round for PhD positions has started!
PhD positions are available through a number of routes, including through the School of Physics and Astronomy and the International Max Planck Research School.
Our group works on development of cutting edge instrumentation for atomic scale studies of electronic structure, complex magnetic orders and unconventional superconductivity. The experiments are undertaken in ultra-low vibration labs.
We will host the CMQM (Condensed Matter and Quantum Materials) meeting 2019 at the School of Physics and Astronomy, organized by the IOP. Through the CMQM conference we wish to provide a forum for the wider UK Condensed Matter Physics community to meet for discussions and to present their research across the specialised disciplines. The conference is supported by a wide range of relevant Institute of Physics groups and we envision it to be the first of an annual series, which we hope will rapidly become established as a platform for the community to come together in the spirit of the former CMMP meetings.
The meeting will take place 3-5 July 2019 in St Andrews, featuring plenary talks by Jacqueline Bloch, Andre Geim, Steve Simon, and Julie Staunton, invited talks in specialized sessions and a poster session.
A new way to engineer 1D surface states through kinetic stabilization. Never heard of this? – Read our paper at http://goo.gl/d9VPBr.
Our recent paper on the Discovery of a strain-stabilized smectic electronic order in LiFeAs is an Editors’ highlight in Nature Communications. Our work combines atomic-scale imaging by low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy with uniaxial strain. Straining the iron-based superconductor LiFeAs reveals the emergence of a new modulated phase, representative of a smectic electronic order. Tunneling spectra of the superconducting gap in this phase show a substantially modified superconducting order parameter.
Our results highlight the importance of electron-lattice coupling in the iron-based superconductor LiFeAs.
Read more in our article in Nature Communications.
We have recently launched a series of videos which explain our research. If you would like to learn more, please take a look at our YouTube channel. One of the videos is specifically about Scanning Tunneling Microscopy.
Our new center of designer quantum materials is featured on BBC today, see "Building the future one atom at a time" and in radio on “Good Morning Scotland”.
If you want to learn more about our research, you may want to take a look at our YouTube channel.
On Thursday, 8th of December, the Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, Shirley-Anne Somerville, and the Principal of the University of St Andrews, Professor Sally Mapstone, opened a new center for Designer Quantum Materials. At the core of this facility is a reactive-oxide molecular beam epitaxy system, funded by the Engineering and Physics Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, EP/M023958/1).
Press coverage:
Just coming back from our condensed matter retreat at the Burn, where we spend three days filled with talks and discussions. 
We are participating in the DAAD RISE programme which offers undergraduate students from Germany an opportunity to go abroad to work on a small research project. Have a look at the web pages of DAAD for more information (in german).
DCA have installed a dual-chamber MBE system for the growth of designer oxide heterostructures at the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of St Andrews. See below for a video of the assembly.
The MBE system will be coupled to existing state-of-the-art spectroscopic probes including low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy and angle-resolved photoemission. This EPSRC-funded strategic equipment (EP/M023958/1) will operate as a shared facility, which we aim to establish as a leading centre for the supply of custom oxide thin films within the UK.
