The electronic and thermodynamic properties of novel materials produced by aerodynamic levitation.

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The processing of liquid materials at high temperatures is commonplace and very important for the production of technological materials. Examples in everyday life include for example steel and glass production and chemical processing. However, despite this, there remain many questions regarding the fundamental nature of high temperature liquids with regards to how their chemical structure gives rise to their properties and how we can predict their behaviour. Other key issues concern how and when some materials form glasses rather than crystalline solids and what are the underlying reasons for this behaviour. In this proposal we wish to develop a system with which we can start to address some of these issues as well as providing new insights into the production of new technological materials. The core principle behind the work is to use our currently installed aerodynamic levitation system to study liquids at temperatures up to 3000K. The key is that all these studies can be carried out without physical containment so that the material remains uncontaminated by crucibles and furnaces. In addition, we have recently shown that with our system we can obtained precise heating and cooling of leviated samples with cooling rates upto ~ 500 K/s while monitoring thermodynamic properties. Preliminary results show taht we have fine control of the production of glasses and glass-ceramics - materials that we wish to study for their potential uses.