Steven J. Gomez Alvarado

Advanced synthesis and scattering techniques for quantum materials

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Research

My research focuses on building an understanding of the microscopic mechanisms underlying emergent phenomena in functional and quantum materials, including frustrated systems, unconventional superconductors, and emergent magnetic materials. Specifically, I am interested in:

1. Interrogating and manipulating the delicate balance of competing energy scales in frustrated and metastable systems

Interactions between the fundamental electronic degrees of freedom (spin, orbital, lattice, charge) can compete in ways that make quantum systems incredibly susceptible to perturbation near certain critical points in their phase diagram. At or near these critical points, exotic and useful behaviors can emerge such as unconventional superconductivity or quantum spin liquid phases. When competition between these energy scales persists down to low temperature, critical fluctuations and/or short-range correlations can be probed via (in)elastic neutron or X-ray scattering, yielding crucial information about the microscopic Hamiltonian which governs the physics and yet is “hidden” when the frustration is relieved and the system enters a frozen or long-range ordered state. To this end, I employ techniques like three-dimensional difference pair distribution function analysis and Monte Carlo modeling to enable both qualitative and quantitative study of the underlying energy scales and emergent symmetries. On the other hand, it can also be instructive to intentionally relieve the frustration by some appropriate perturbation (e.g., site disorder, doping, strain, applied field, etc.). This approach can reveal the nature of the proximate competing electronic orders, and enable new functionalities where materials can be driven between two quantum phases with remarkably different electronic or magnetic responses.

Selected publications

2. Using and developing active single crystal growth techniques to mitigate and tune disorder

While actively controlled single crystal growth methods have been widely employed for over six decades as a powerful method to generate high-quality single crystals of optical, magnetic, and electronic materials, an ever-developing frontier in this area involves accessing new regimes of phase space and parameter space via new growth tools and techniques. To this end, I make use of high applied gas pressures (inert or oxidizing) during crystal growth as a knob for tuning site disorder and chemical potential for materials where subtle disorder effects can have remarkable impacts on the phase behaviors of interest. I am interested in extending the capabilities of active crystal growth techniques to enable new growth regimes for known compounds and to explore uncharted territories in compositional phase diagrams.

Selected publications