Dr. Ioanna Bakaimi

Contact

PhD Student IESL-FORTH & Physics Department University of Crete

Address:

Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL)
Foundation for Research & Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
P.O. Box 1385 Vassilika Vouton Heraklion 71110 Greece

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Phone: 0030 - 2810 - 391874

Fax: 0030 - 2810 - 391305

Lab Phone: 0030 - 2810 - 391349

Scientific information

Scientific information:

Subject area:

Frustrated Magnets and Multiferroicity

 

Research:

My research work involves the synthesis and the characterization of frustrated magnets with the aim to uncover unknown so-far induced mutliferroic compounds (i.e. material phases that could combine coupled electric and magnetic dipole order). Specifically, I prepare two-dimensional triangular systems of transition metal oxides, where geometric frustration is imposed by the lattice topology, with the purpose to carry a systematic study where both the spin and orbital degrees of freedom are variables. The goal is to understand the impact of the spin configuration in the material’s magnetic and dielectric properties and eventually suggest ways of resolving the magnetic frustration (for example by breaking the point group symmetry). The possible enhancement of polarization (and the dielectric constant) with simultaneous elimination of the degeneracy in the (magnetic) ground state will be evaluated in view of different growth modes (e.g. bulk solid-state reactions as compared to epitaxial thin films by pulsed laser deposition). The methods I employ for the crystallographic characterization, involve X-ray and neutron powder diffraction, while physical properties utilize in-house facilities such as magnetic susceptibility, magnetotransport and a home-made setup probing the magnetodielectric response of the various materials. We hope to answer questions on the efficient coupling of magnetic and ferroelectric order parameters in strongly frustrated systems and suggest new material phases, for example, with potential use in ferroelectric memory devices.

 

Personal:

I enjoy sports a lot, travelling, listening to music and reading books of physics, history and literature.