Research Contributions

Research efforts in the group are focused on the theme of developing structure – composition – property relations in functional inorganic materials. Contributions include the development of solvothermal routes for a variety of inorganic nanomaterials, understanding the rôle that lone pairs of non-bonding electrons in ions such as Pb and Bi play in inducing polar and ferroic (including multiferroic) behavior, understanding the effects of structural topology in frustrating phase transitions in polar compounds, developing template-free routes to porous and composite inorganic materials, developing new multifunctional magnets, understanding frustrated magnetism, and revealing the importance of oxide-stabilized noble metal ions in oxidation catalysis, with the concurrent development of model compounds thereof. Recent contributions include a better understanding of phosphors for solid-state white lighting, and the development of new phosphors.