****Technical Abstract**** This proposal addresses fundamental problems where low dimensionality, anisotropy and size, combined with interacting electronic, magnetic, and lattice effects, lead to the physical properties of materials highly relevant to materials research. Materials of interests include quasi-one-dimensional organic segregated cation-anion charge transfer conductors, magnets, and superconductors on macro to nano-sized scales, and ferrimagnetic d- electron based compounds (such as AB2O4-type spinels) with strongly interacting charge, spin, orbital, and structural degrees of freedom. The thermodynamic variables used in this experimentally-based investigation include low temperatures, high magnetic fields, and high pressures, and the experimental tools include a broad range of methods in condensed matter physics. Scientifically, this project expands the understanding of how the order parameters in low dimensional and restricted geometry environments interact cooperatively, coexist, or exclude each other. In materials where magnetic and lattice effects strongly interact, low temperature and high magnetic field studies will give new insight into their complex interdependence. In terms of training, problem solving is emphasized. Young researchers in the group are exposed to a broad range of materials, methods, and to a large community of collaborators, both domestic and international. For education, the program's main approach is to bring the lab into the classroom and to the public through curricula, workshops and outreach programs.
The scientific goals of the project will expand the understanding of how important properties of materials such as magnetism and superconductivity "talk to each other" and behave under extremes of temperature, magnetic field and pressure. In such cases, one kind of stimulus can make a material respond in a different way (for instance thermal to electrical, magnetic to electrical or electrical to mechanical) and such effects can lead to the development of multifunctional materials of potential technological importance. Low dimensionality and anisotropy, where the properties of materials such as the flow of energy or current may be very different in different directions, are key parameters in the realization and control of function, and both organic and inorganic materials will be the focus of the investigations. In terms of education, problem solving is a main goal in the training of young researchers in the group, who are exposed to a broad range of materials, methods, and to a large community of collaborators, both domestic and international. For education and outreach, the program's main approach is to bring the lab into the classroom and to the public. The PI and the research group have a culture of outreach as part of their responsibility, and have a sustained level of involvement in STEM and diversity related programs in the laboratory, the university, the state, and nationally.
