Professor Alexander Shluger

Research summary

See Professor Shluger’s latest Science Highlights here:

Polarons in 2D

Complexity of grain boundaries in ceramics: electrons reveal it all

Electron Trapping Polycrystalline Materials with Negative Electron Affinity.

High-Tc Superconductivity in a New Class of Compounds LaOFeAs.

Mechanism of atomic force microscopy imaging in solution.


My main research interests broadly concern the mechanisms of defect processes in the bulk and at surfaces of insulators. I developed theoretical methods for predictive modelling of point defects, self-trapped excitons and polarons in insulating materials; created new models of self-trapped excitons and point defects and predicted their properties in a broad range of insulators.

Together with my research group I am developing models of radiation induced processes in alkali halides, SiO2, MgO, and other oxides. It is one of the world leaders in modelling and simulating defects and defect processes in high-k oxide materials, such as ZrO2 and HfO2, and interfaces with Si and metal substrates.

Significant part of our research concerns modelling the mechanisms of contrast formation in Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) imaging of insulators in vacuum and in liquids. We are developing multi-scale modelling techniques for simulating manipulation of atoms and molecules at insulating surfaces using AFM tips.

We use a wide arsenal of ab initio as well as semi-empirical solid state techniques and in collaboration with Dr Peter Sushko developing an embedded cluster method for defect modelling in crystalline and amorphous materials.

I am part of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the London Centre for Nanotechnology at UCL.

Keywords

Oxide Materials, Defects In Solids, Excitons, Interfaces, Photodesorption, Point Defects, Polarons, Surfaces, Scanning-Probe Microscopies, Embedded-Cluster Techniques, Scanning-Probe Microscopies

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