Prof. Wojciech Grochala [Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, Poland]

Title: Silver fluorides hosting immensely strong superexchange as candidates for novel superconductors

Speaker: Prof. Wojciech Grochala

Time: 2:00 - 3:00 PM, Monday, Nov. 5, 2018

Place: Conference Room 6-410, HPSTAR (Shanghai)

Polycom call #: 02120004

Host: Viktor Struzhkin

Abstract

Coinage group metals differ considerably from each other in terms of chemistry and physics. One particularly interesting manifestation of differences is offered by divalent state, which is enormously common and well-studied for copper, much less so for silver, while it is represented by only a handful of stoichiometries for gold. Here I will focus on compounds of divalent silver, notably fluorides. I will discuss uniqueness of their crystal, electronic and magnetic structures as well as high pressure behaviour. Ultimately I will show what similarities and differences exist between them and undoped copper(II) oxides – precursors of the family of high-TC superconductors [1-10]. High pressure behaviour of AgF2 will also be mentioned [9].

[1] ANGEW CHEM INT ED ENGL 40 (15): 2742-2781 2001

[2] CHEMPHYSCHEM 4(9): 997-1001 2003

[3] NATURE MATER 5(7): 513-514 2006

[4] PHYS STAT SOL RRL 2(2): 71-73 2008

[5] ANGEW CHEM INT ED ENGL 49(9): 1683-1686 2010

[6] CHEM COMMUN 49(56): 6262-6264 2013

[7] ANGEW CHEM INT ED ENGL 56(34): 10114–10117 2017

[8] PHYS REV B 96(15): 155140 2017

[9] INORG CHEM 56(23): 14651–14661 2017

[10] submitted to PNAS 2018 & arXiv:1804.00329

Biography of the Speaker

Wojciech Grochala (b.1972) studied chemistry at the University of Warsaw (Poland) and received his Ph.D. in molecular spectroscopy under the supervision of Jolanta Bukowska. After postdoctoral work in theoretical chemistry with Roald Hoffmann (Cornell, US), and in experimental inorganic and materials chemistry with Peter P. Edwards (Birmingham, UK) he returned to Poland. He obtained his habilitation at the University of Warsaw in 2005, and in 2011 he was appointed Full Professor. Wojciech Grochala received the Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship (US), Royal Society of Chemistry Postdoctoral and Research Fellowships (UK), The Crescendum est Polonia Foundation Fellowship (Poland), and Świętosławski Prize 2nd degree (Polish Chem. Soc., Warsaw section). In 2014 he was granted titular professorship from the President of Poland. Since 2005 Grochala heads the Laboratory of Technology of Novel Functional Materials, currently with some 25 group members.