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Simple ingredients, complex structures

Abstract

A key challenge in modern materials chemistry is how to control structural complexity through rational design, and in due course how to exploit this complexity to produce new and interesting materials with new and interesting properties. This talk will focus on two recent stories from the group in which relatively simple geometric considerations play a central role in stabilising very unusual architectures. The first - a study carried out in collaboration with Prof. Cameron Kepert and his team - concerns a new metal–organic framework known as TRUMOF-1, the structure of which is related to the aperiodic patterns found in so-called "Truchet" tilings [1]. And the second study is a reinterpretation of the structure of amorphous calcium carbonate, an important biomineral used by Nature as a precursor in the synthesis of shells and skeletal structures [2].

[1] E. G. Meekel, et al., Science 379, 357 (2023) [2] T. C. Nicholas, et al., Nature Chem. (in press); arXiv:2303.06178 (2023)

Short bio:

Andrew Goodwin is Professor of Materials Chemistry and a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Born in Australia, Andrew studied at the Universities of Sydney and Cambridge before moving to Oxford in 2009. His research, which is based in Oxford's Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, focusses on the dual roles of flexibility and disorder in functional materials.