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Department of Physics

Dr Dean S. Keeble

Research

I am currently employed as a Science City Research Alliance (SCRA) Research Fellow.

My current research is focussed on the local structure, or local disorder, of functional materials. I use diffraction based techniques (including total scattering and PDF) and magnetic resonance to look at how local deviations from average structure affect (or, indeed, effect) the physical properties of materials. These properties include piezoelectricity, photostriction, magnetism and ferroelectricity.

My PhD was a project based on the novel bismuth-based oxyfluoride relaxor ferroelectrics, exploring the solid state chemistry and physical properties of novel bismuth-based oxyfluoride materials related to the well-known Aurivillius phases, which are predicted to show relaxor-type ferroelectric behaviour. I completed my PhD in 2009 and moved onto a project looking into the novel optical and structural properties of the solid solution of lithium niobate and lithium tantalate (LNT). In collaboration with researches at the university of Oxford, we study the structure of single crystal and polycrystalline LNT samples with a wide range of techniques.

I also collaborate with many other projects, including microwave dielectrics, zeolites, nuclear waste formers, frustrated magnetic structures, as well as ongoing research into other ferroelectric materials and devices.

Techniques

A wide range of techniques are utilized to gain as much insight into the materials under study as possible. These include powder x-ray diffraction, single crystal diffraction (both high resolution and structural CCD collections), solid state NMR, electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, dielectric spectroscopy, ferroelectric poling and hysteresis loop measurement, birefringence microscopy, as well as numerous and varied experiments at central facilities (Diamond, ISIS, ILL, ESRF, PSI, etc.).

Publications

For a possibly up-to-date list of my publications, why not check out my Researcher ID?

















A slightly more irreverent use of time would be to video oneself cycling around the ESRF, speed it up, and to add comedy music...

DK

Write to:

Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL


Contact Details:

Office: MAS 3.09
Telephone:
+44 (0)24761 50802
Fax:
+44 (0)2476 692016
Mobile:
07988 863 602
Email:
d.s.keeble@warwick.ac.uk