Inorganic Solid-State Material Lab.

Our major research interests are to identify novel inorganic solid-state materials displaying new crystal structures and potentially interesting chemical/physical properties for energy applications, and to understand the inter-correlation of composition-structure-property of those materials by coupling theoretical investigations with experimental approaches. Our experimental efforts include (1) various high temperature material syntheses using conventional furnaces, molten metal-flux and arc-melting, (2) crystal structure characterization using powder and single crystal X-ray diffractions, and (3) analyses of chemical and physical property measurements. In addition, we also exploit quantum theoretical calculations based on density functional theory to understand electronic structures and chemical bonding observed in those materials, which are responsible for properties of materials as well as crystal structures. Research projects are as follows.

Theory-Assisted Investigation for Thermoelectric Materials: Development of Zintl-phase thermoelectric materials guided by theoretical investigations

Li-rich Intermetallic Compounds with Layered Structures: Synthesis and characterization of intermetallic materials with layered-structures potentially applicable as electrodes from Li-ion batteries

Magnetocaloric Materials for Energy Materials Applications: Investigation for novel intermetallic compounds with giant magnetocaloric effect

Single crystal growth and size control by using a molten-metal flux reaction method