Charles Lesher receives special funding for synergistic research activities
MAT-X: Materials at Extreme Conditions
The Faculty Management Team allocated funds for a synergy package to support research activities that contribute to building bridges between at least two Science and Technology departments/centres, where the groups involved have not previously worked together. In total, DKK 4.3 million was granted to nine synergetic projects. One of these nine projects is ‘MAT-X: Materials at Extreme Conditions’, bringing together the Geoscience, Chemistry and Physics departments at Aarhus University.
PI Charles Lesher, and CoPIs Martin Bremholm, (Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Centre of Materials Crystallography, and Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Centre) and Hans Kjeldsen (Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy and Stellar Astrophysics Centre) are now establishing new synergistic activities to promote cross-disciplinary research on Materials at Extreme Conditions (MAT-X) relevant to materials science, geoscience and astrophysics. They will use their expertise in ultra-high pressure-temperature synthesis, spectroscopy, thermodynamics, solid and fluid dynamics, and computational modeling to investigate the properties of materials formed by extreme compression and high temperatures. This area of research has direct applications to both planetary formation and evolution, and in the search of new and novel materials with unprecedented properties for industrial applications.
Over the course of the project, MAT-X will sponsor planning and science workshops, a lecture series, establish a web-presence, conduct outreach activities, host visiting scholars, and pursue several pilot projects.