John Paul Attfield (born 1962) is a British chemist who is Professor of

Materials science Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials sci ...

in the School of Chemistry at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

and Director of the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions (CSEC).

Education

Attfield was educated at Durham Johnston School in

Durham, England Durham ( , locally ) is a cathedral city and civil parish in the county of County Durham, Durham, England. It is the county town and contains the headquarters of Durham County Council, the unitary authority which governs the district of Count ...

and the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

where he was a student at

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

. He was awarded a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in chemistry followed by a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree in 1987 for his work on chemical

crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...

supervised by Anthony Cheetham and Peter Battle.

Career and research

Attfield was appointed a lecturer, and subsequently a Reader at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

from 1991 to 2003. Attfield's research focuses on synthesis, structural studies, and property measurements for electronic materials such as

transition metal oxides An oxide () is a chemical compound containing at least one oxygen atom and one other element in its chemical formula. "Oxide" itself is the dianion (anion bearing a net charge of −2) of oxygen, an O2− ion with oxygen in the oxidation state o ...

. His research has been funded by the

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British UK Research Councils, Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical scienc ...

(EPSRC). Attfield has made significant contributions to the study of the Verwey transition in

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula . It is one of the iron oxide, oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetism, ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetization, magnetized to become a ...

, solving its

charge ordering Charge ordering (CO) is a (first- or second-order) phase transition occurring mostly in strongly correlated materials such as transition metal oxides or organic conductors. Due to the strong interaction between electrons, charge (physics), charges ...

properties. Paul Attfield has made distinctive contributions to the experimental understanding of structure in the solid-state, in particular pioneering the use of resonant X-ray scattering to study

cation An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

and valence ordering effects and characterising charge-order in strongly correlated systems such as

. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: He introduced the cation-size variance as a concept to rationalise and predict disorder effects, with a substantial impact on the study and preparation of technologically important materials. He has synthesised and characterised new materials with novel electronic properties, including high-Tc superconductivity,

colossal magnetoresistance Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) is a property of some materials, mostly manganese-based perovskite oxides, that enables them to dramatically change their electrical resistance in the presence of a magnetic field. The magnetoresistance of conventio ...

, and

negative thermal expansion Negative thermal expansion (NTE) is an unusual physicochemical process in which some materials contract upon heating, rather than expand as most other materials do. The most well-known material with NTE is water at 0 to 3.98 °C. Also, the d ...

, including new developments in

chemical synthesis Chemical synthesis (chemical combination) is the artificial execution of chemical reactions to obtain one or several products. This occurs by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions. In modern laboratory uses ...

Awards and honours

Attfield was awarded the

Meldola Medal and Prize The Meldola Medal and Prize was awarded annually from 1921 to 1979 by the Chemical Society and from 1980 to 2008 by the Royal Society of Chemistry to a British chemist who was under 32 years of age for promising original investigations in chemistr ...

by the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the ...

(RSC) in 1991; the Corday-Morgan Medal of the RSC in 1998; and the Peter Day Award in 2013. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014 for “substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge”. In 2016, Attield was awarded a

Daiwa Adrian Prize This Daiwa Adrian Prize is an award given by The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, a UK charity, to scientists who have made significant achievements in science through Anglo-Japanese collaborative research. Prizes are awarded every third year and ...

, recognizing his work as part of a British-Japanese scientific collaboration, and in 2022 he received the John B. Goodenough Award for materials chemistry from the Royal Chemistry Society, specifically "For transformative discoveries of new materials from high pressure synthesis and of novel electronic phenomena in solids."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Attfield, Paul Living people Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh 1962 births Solid state chemists British inorganic chemists Alumni of the University of Oxford