Musfeldt Group’s Recent Achievements
The Musfeldt Group’s research area focuses on experimental materials chemistry and physics. They employ a variety of spectroscopic methods to reveal and control the properties of quantum materials. External stimuli are used to tune these properties in order to explore new physical phenomena and uncover properties of technological relevance.
The Musfeldt Group provides a very unique opportunity for students with the DMREF team (Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future). This year, the team received “The Creativity Extension which is the highest honor in DMR,” Musfeldt said. “The team received an extra $450,000 for it this year.”
The group has also been busy publishing papers such as “Piezochromism in the magnetic chalcogenide MnPS3” in npj Quantum Materials. Nathan Harms, graduate student in the Musfeldt Group, is the lead author. This research explores combining high-pressure optical spectroscopies and first-principles calculations to reveal piezochromism in MnPS3. Photographs are of piezochromic MnPS3 inside the diamond anvil cell at several characteristic pressures and also after release at room temperature. These images show a gasket hole diameter of 325 μm. The diamond culets are 500 μm.
Musfeldt was also published a cover article in Physics Today titled “Nanotubes from layered transition metal dichalcogenides.”
