A spoonful of extra electrons or swapped-in molecules can flip a metal-organic framework from an insulator into a superconductor or a quantum spin liquid. These materials, called strongly correlated systems, sit at a knife-edge between localised and delocalised electrons, where tiny changes in charge or composition switch them between metal, insulator, and superconductor. Conventional materials are hard to tune precisely, but magnetic and electronically conducting metal-organic frameworks (MECMOFs) offer modular, directional bonds that let researchers design interactions atom by atom. The problem is that MECMOFs are brand new—the first highly conducting, magnetically ordered examples have only just been made—so the synthesis and measurement tools that work for traditional strongly correlated materials do not yet exist for them. This project will dope MECMOFs with charge carriers and ligands to create a new class of quantum materials—DISCO MOFs. The team will use diffraction, spectroscopy, and neutron scattering to map the hidden orbital, spin, and structural orders that emerge. If successful, DISCO MOFs could host exotic states such as unconventional superconductors, heavy fermion systems, and quantum spin liquids. These states are fundamental science, not immediate technology, but they could eventually underpin robust quantum computers, spintronic devices, or lossless power transmission.
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Strongly correlated materials are the source of many of the biggest unsolved puzzles in physics and could potentially revolutionise information technology, through robust quantum computation, spintronics or superconductivity. However, these materials lie on the border between localisation and delocalisation and so small changes in charge, composition and weak interactions can switch a material between states: whether metal, insulator or superconductor. Realising target properties therefore requires careful control over their stoichiometry and interactions. The modularity and directional bonds in magnetic and electronically conducting metalorganic frameworks (MECMOFs) permits design over the interactions and structures impossible in conventional inorganic or organic materials. The first examples of MECMOFs with high conductivity and magnetic ordering temperatures have just now been made, but as a new class of materials, our toolbox of methods for MECMOFs lags behind that of conventional strongly correlated materials, in both synthesis of non-stoichiometric materials and measurement of their quantum properties. In this project, we will use doping with charge carriers and ligands to transform these first examples of strongly correlated MECMOFs into a new class of quantum materials. Strongly correlated materials have complex orderings, structural orbital and spin, so I will use my expertise in diffraction and spectroscopy techniques to uncover the hidden orders within these materials. We will also develop methods to measure the quantum properties of Doping Induced Strongly COrrelated MOFs (DISCO MOFs), using the power of (in)elastic neutron scattering and advanced physical property measurements, in field and under pressure. DISCO MOFs will allow us to design in MECMOFs exotic strongly correlated states, such as unconventional superconductors, heavy fermion states, and quantum spin liquids, able to resolve fundamental problems and produce transformational technologies.
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