Targeting Ordered Heteroanionic Materials Using Electrosynthesis

材料合成定义了年龄。只有当人类学会了如何成功地将铁矿石还原为金属形式时，才有可能从青铜时代进入铁器时代。同样，现代合成技术的进步已经导致了信息革命，并将在即将到来的量子时代发挥重要作用。为了确保合成科学能够跟上新技术的需求，探索新的方法论是很重要的。极性材料具有与其对称性相关的独特性质，包括二次谐波产生、压电性、与暗物质的耦合以及独特的磁性。大多数针对这些材料的合成方案都涉及到使用极性部分作为构建块，并依靠机会创建具有净极矩的晶体结构。然而，这些偶极子在结构中经常会反对齐，从而产生中心对称的材料。通过使用电合成，我计划以非中心对称材料为目标。电合成涉及在加热过程中对固态反应施加偏电，这将使异阴离子材料更有可能形成极性结构。通过在相图中增加额外的电压维度，新的材料将在空间群中形成，这些空间群允许只存在于非中心对称环境中的性质。这项技术也将有助于在异阴离子材料中创建有序性。杂阴离子材料在电池化学、光伏等领域具有重要的光学和电学性质，是人们非常感兴趣的领域。这种兴趣源于这些系统的可调性。然而，尽管阴离子有序性已被证明会影响这些性质，但它往往很难控制。我计划使用电合成来诱导异阴离子物种的有序/无序转变，因为阴离子将具有平行于外加磁场的能量优势。通过建立一种可控的方法来诱导无序异阴离子体系的有序，我将能够系统地研究阴离子放置与光学和电学性质之间的关系。在最初的5年里，我计划开发电合成的方法学，证明这是一种针对极性材料的可行方法，并确定该技术的局限性。从长远来看，我计划使用这项技术来创造设计材料，以允许探测暗物质，在深紫外光中产生二次谐波，以及其他依赖于极性材料独特性质的应用。开发新的合成方案来制造具有磁性的材料将增加国家在创新工艺和量子科学领域的研究实力。这项工作将继续使加拿大在这些领域成为国际领先者。

Materials synthesis defines ages. Progression from the bronze age to the iron age only became possible as humans learned how to successfully reduce iron ore into its metallic form. Similarly, modern advances in synthetic technology have lead to the information revolution, and will play a major role in the upcoming quantum era. In order to ensure synthetic science can keep pace with the demands of new technology, it is important to explore new methodologies. Polar materials have unique properties related to their symmetry, including second harmonic generation, piezoelectricity, coupling to dark matter, and unique magnetic properties. Most synthetic schemes to target these materials involve using a polar moiety as a building block, and relying on chance to create a crystal structure with a net polar moment. However, these dipoles will frequently anti-align within a structure, creating a material which is centrosymmetric. By using electrosynthesis, I plan to target non-centrosymmetric materials. Electrosynthesis involves applying an electric bias to a solid state reaction during heating, which will cause heteroanionic materials to be more likely to form polar structures. By adding the extra dimension of voltage to the phase diagram, new materials will be formed in space groups which allow for properties which can only exist in non-centrosymmetric environments. This technique will also be useful for creating ordering in heteroanionic materials. Heteroanionic materials are of great interest in the fields of battery chemistry, photovoltaics and other applications where the optical and electronic properties are of interest. This interest results from the tunability of these systems. However, although anion ordering has been shown to affect these properties it is frequently difficult to control. I plan to use electrosynthesis to induce order/disorder transitions in heteroanionic species, as the anions will have an energetic benefit to aligning parallel to the applied field. By creating a controlled method to induce order in disordered heteroanionic systems, I will be able to conduct a systematic study the relationship between anion placement and optical and electronic properties. In the first 5 years, I plan to develop the methodology for electrosynthesis, proving that this is a viable method for targeting polar materials and determining the limitations of the technique. In the long term, I plan to use this technique to create designer materials to allow the detection of dark matter, and second harmonic generation in the deep UV, and other applications that rely on properties unique to polar materials. Developing new synthetic schemes to make materials which are magnetically interesting will increase the strength of the national research in the field of innovative processes and quantum science. This work will continue to allow Canada to be an international leader in these fields.