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Welcome to the Home Page of the research group
of Dr
Janette Dunn. My recent work mostly relates
to the fullerene C60 and related compounds.
The fullerene molecule C60 is of interest
to large numbers of physicists and chemists because of its many
unique and varied properties. For example, it is seen experimentally
that fullerene solids can exhibit various phase transitions. The
A3C60 fullerides (A = alkali metal) can
be metals or superconductors, while in contrast the A4C60
materials are insulators. Solid C60 is diamagnetic
but related materials can be ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic.
We are interested in gaining a good theoretical understanding
of this fascinating molecule in order to better explain its observed
properties.
All atoms, molecules and crystals vibrate. We
are particularly interested in the consequences of these vibrations.
Strong coupling between the vibrations and the motion of the electrons,
known as the Jahn-Teller (JT) effect, can cause the fullerene
molecule to distort. Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM) is now
of sufficiently high resolution to observe such distortions. Understanding
these distortions may help explain why the A3C60
fullerides are superconducting.
My group is currently investigating how the Jahn-Teller
effect manifests itself in experimental STM observations. We are
also looking at the nature of possible vibrational distortions
of the fullerene molecule, and how pseudorotations (rotations
of a distortion) can be distinguished from rotations of the molecule
as a whole.
A list of my publications in Google Scholar is
available here.
Further information
You can find out more about:
A list of a selection of my publications can be found on the
Publications tab of my staff profile here.
If you want to know more detail about our current projects, see
A recently completed project is:
Details of older projects can be found here.
You can also find out details of the international
Jahn-Teller symposia held approximately
every two years.
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