Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/R53999/01
Title:	The chemical control of superconductivity in boride and borrocarbide systems
Principal Investigator:	Rosseinsky, Professor M
Other Investigators:	Darling, Dr GR Claridge, Dr JB
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Chemistry
Organisation:	University of Liverpool
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 February 2002	Ends:	31 January 2005	Value (£):	226,005
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Chemical Synthetic Methodology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Electronics No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
The recent discovery of superconductivity at 39K in MgB2 opens up well-defined opportunities for synthesis to modify the complex electronic structure of these phases, which appear to have both a and n states at the Fermi energy. We propose to prepare new ternary borides and borocarbides where the electronic structure can be tuned via the bandfilling but also more subtly by the anisotropic adjustment of unit cell parameters, the extent of metal-boron covalency and the establishment of superstructure ordering both within and between the layers. Borocarbides offer an important synthetic avenue as there is opportunity to tune the layer planarity, making it possible to position the materials near a structural instability. The insertion of magnetic and nonmagnetic lanthanide and transition metal cations will demonstrate the extent to which carriers are confined to the BZ layers and their sensitivity to magnetic pair-breaking. A wide variety of synthetic, including high pressure techniques, and characterisation methods will be used. The synthesis and characterisation programmes will be closely coupled with detailed electronic band structure calculations which will reveal how chemical changes affect the a and n nature and atomic parentage of the electronic states at the Fermi level. Geometry optimisation will assist experimental investigation of B/C order. The close interaction of theory and experiment is expected to be a strong feature of future materials discovery.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.liv.ac.uk