Skip Navigation | ANU Home | Search ANU
Skip Navigation | ANU Home | Search ANU
A material's properties must ultimately arise out of its structure. A key aspect of materials physics and chemistry lies in exploring this relationship. We use a combination of experimental techniques including neutron, X-ray and electron diffraction, and computational modelling to explore the structures of materials, and relate the structures to the physical and magnetic properties. Through links with AINSE, we particularly make use of neutron diffraction at the Bragg Institute at the OPAL reactor (ANSTO, Sydney) and the ISIS Spallation neutron source (UK), as well as synchrotron X-ray sources. This research group has strong connections with Richard Welberry's Disordered Materials Research Group.
After graduating from Monash University, Darren worked at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) before gaining an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering Research Fellowship in the RSC.
Magnetic phase transitions in rare-earth magnets have been studied using specific heat measurements, magnetometry and neutron powder diffraction.
More about Incommensurate Magnetic Order in Rare-Earth Compounds
Key achievements have been the first refinements of a SRO model against X-ray and neutron diffuse scattering data simultaneously, and the development of a flexible suite of computer programs to enable complex systems to be modelled routinely.
We have studied the structural phase transitions in deuterated paraterphenyl (C18D14) and deuterated benzil, C14D10O2. The former study made use of neutron diffuse scattering, the latter used neutron powder diffraction and 3-axis neutron spectroscopy, and showed that the phase transition is a first order ferroelectric transition that occurs at 88.1K.