Dr Sacha Fop

Research Overview

Research in our group is focussed on the development of innovative solid-state materials for hydrogen-based technologies. Fast hydrogen transport at the atomic level is a fundamental prerequisite for the operation of these technologies. We work on the discovery and design of new hydrogen ion (proton, H⁺, and hydride, H^-) conducting materials with high conductivity at reduced temperatures. These materials will help enabling the widespread use of hydrogen as a zero-carbon fuel for energy generation, as well as for application in important catalytic processes.

We employ a range of solid-state methods for the synthesis of new materials and state-of-the-art techniques for the characterisation of the electrochemical and physicochemical properties. Control of the characteristics of the crystal structure (i.e., the spatial arrangement of atoms within a material) is key to enable high ionic conductivity. For this reason, we devote particular attention to the characterisation of the correlation between crystal structure and properties by using X-ray diffraction and advanced neutron scattering techniques at large-scale research facilities (such as the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source in Oxfordshire and the Institute Laue Langevin in Grenoble, France).