Dr Emma McCabe

Associate Professor in the Department of Physics

What do you do?

I am a condensed matter physicist at Durham University. My research spans condensed matter physics, solid-state and materials chemistry, with a focus on understanding structure–property relationships in complex materials and designing and synthesising functional materials.

How are you involved in this area of science? 

Whether it’s designing semiconductors with structures of specific symmetries for solar cell applications, or materials with key magnetic and dielectric properties for electronic and data storage applications, our group combines insight from experimental and computational approaches.

We make new materials, sometimes guided by computational results, investigate their structures (e.g. using diffraction techniques), measure their physical properties (e.g. magnetism, conductivity, photoactivity), and use computational methods to help explain these experimental results. This understanding helps us design new, optimised, functional materials. 

What do you love about this topic?

I love making a material that has never been reported before, understanding how its atoms are arranged and how that determines its physical properties. This research involves using a number of techniques – sometimes through collaboration, and it’s great to be able to work alongside some amazing people. 

How does this work deliver real-world impact?

New technologies require functional materials with new combinations of properties – whether its semiconductors that are polar for solar cell applications, or unusual combinations of magnetic, dielectric and chiral behaviours for spintronics, or data storage. We can only meet the demands of emerging technologies if we understand these complex physical properties, and how to design materials to exploit these behaviours. 

Find out more:

• Read more of Dr Emma McCabe's work into designing new polar materials.
• Discover more about structural diversity of rare-Earth oxychalcogenides.
• Learn more about the magnetic and electronic properties of oxyselenides - influence of transition metal ions and lanthanides.