Welcome to John, who is starting his PhD with us, and welcome (back) to Gesa who is starting an @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellowship
King group @ St Andrews
@kinggroup.bsky.social
Research group studying the electronic structure and thin film synthesis of quantum and 2D materials at the University of St Andrews, UK; https://www.quantummatter.co.uk/king
Out now in PRL: combined structural and electronic characterisation with @wahlgroup.bsky.social @diamondlightsource.bsky.social @maxplanck.de @maxivlaboratory.bsky.social shows that the surface of Ca3Ru2O7 is a correlated insulator while its bulk is metallic. journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
Correlated Insulator at the Surface of the Polar Metal ${\mathrm{Ca}}_{3}{\text{Ru}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{7}$
We investigate the electronic structure at the surface of the correlated oxide ${\mathrm{Ca}}_{3}{\mathrm{Ru}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{7}$, a low-symmetry ruthenate oxide which hosts an unconventional polar-...
journals.aps.org
Congratulations to Dan at his PhD graduation!
Great to be back for this year's retreat of the Centre for Designer Quantum Materials
Burn meeting 2026 Condensed matter retreat at the Burn in Glenesk with lot's of physics, some football and exciting...
New preprint: Disentangling bulk and surface electronic structure using targeted cleave planes in RuO2, with @maxplanck.de and @maxivlaboratory.bsky.social, out on arXiv today - arxiv.org/abs/2605.06798
Disentangling bulk and surface electronic structure using targeted cleave planes in RuO$_2$
Rutile RuO$_2$ has attracted significant interest due to its putative unconventional electronic and magnetic properties and its proximity to superconductivity. However, the measurement and interpretat...
arxiv.org
Out now in Advanced Materials, read about the impact of moiré lattice formation in epitaxial NbSe2-graphite heterostructures, with @manchester.ac.uk and @diamondlightsource.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/adma...
Resonant Interlayer Coupling in NbSe2‐Graphite Epitaxial Moiré Superlattices
Combining angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory derived calculations, this work reveals strong interlayer coupling and moiré replicas of the graphite π states in mol...
doi.org
New preprint showing how long-wavelength moiré potentials and flat electronic bands can be generated from the interplay of a large lattice mismatch and an additional periodic modulation from a charge-density wave; with @wahlgroup.bsky.social & @maxivlaboratory.bsky.social. arxiv.org/abs/2511.05648
Flat electronic bands from cooperative moiré and charge order
The formation of flat electronic bands from long-wavelength superperiodic moiré potentials in van der Waals heterostructures underpins the creation and control of a host of highly-tuneable correlated ...
arxiv.org
Our recent work showing that excitons are not required to drive the charge density wave phase transition in TiSe2 is now published in PRX - a very nice collaboration including @uni-hamburg.de and @maxivlaboratory.bsky.social. Read more at: doi.org/10.1103/9trc...
doi.org
Very many congratulations to Martin on being awarded the 2025 IoP Business, Higher Education and National Research Facility Technician Award for his extraordinary work within the Centre for Designer Quantum Materials: www.iop.org/about/awards...
2025 Business, Higher Education and National Research Facility Technician Award: Martin McLaren
For spearheading the design and creation of multi-million-pound research infrastructure at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.
iop.org
Welcome to Ferran Aliagas Puigdomènech, who joins us from Universiteit van Amsterdam as a new PhD student in the group, working jointly with us and @wahlgroup.bsky.social
Many congratulations to Dan on successfully defending his PhD thesis: using LEED-IV to track minute structural distortions at ruthenate surfaces, and understanding their implications on electronic structure. Dan worked jointly with us, @wahlgroup.bsky.social and @diamondlightsource.bsky.social
Our recent work showing how a simple substrate pre-sputtering can facilitate layer-by-layer film growth of van der Waals materials published as an Editor's Pick in APL Materials: doi.org/10.1063/5.02...
Substrate pre-sputtering for layer-by-layer van der Waals epitaxy of 2D materials
Two-dimensional transition metal chalcogenides, with their atomically layered structure, favorable electronic and mechanical properties, and often strong spin–o
doi.org
Find us at ECOSS38 this week. Phil will be talking about some of our recent work on CrTe2 and Cr2Te3 in the mini-symposium on "MBE growth of new 2D magnetic materials: beyond bulk constraints" on Wednesday.
New postdoc position available to work on one or more of ARPES, STM, and oxide MBE, in a collaborative position between @wahlgroup.bsky.social, Andreas Rost's and our group in St Andrews. Closing date for applications: 18/9/2025. See www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
Research Fellow - AR3185
Research Fellow - AR3185, School of Physics and Astronomy Salary: £38,784 - £43,842 per annum Start Date: 1 October 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter Fixed Term: 24 months, <p style="text-align:...
vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk
Our recent micro-ARPES studies, demonstrating strong and distinct forms of electron-phonon coupling at different surface terminations of PdCoO2, with @maxplanck.de (CPFS) and @diamondlightsource.bsky.social, selected as an Editor's Suggestion in Phys. Rev. B: journals.aps.org/prb/abstract...
Our new ARPES analysis package `peaks` is now released: 📦 pip install peaks-arpes 💻 Code: github.com/phrgab/peaks 📚 Docs: research.st-andrews.ac.uk/kinggroup/pe... 📄 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2508.04803
GitHub - phrgab/peaks: Python electron spectroscopy (particularly ARPES) analysis toolkit developed by King group at St Andrews
Python electron spectroscopy (particularly ARPES) analysis toolkit developed by King group at St Andrews - phrgab/peaks
github.com
Hear about some of our latest work on TiSe2 this week: Sebastian will be presenting a poster at "2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides" in Cambridge on Tuesday, and Phil will be talking on Thursday at ICESS-16 in Berkeley.
Congratulations to James and Liam who graduated with their PhD degrees.
Find us at the CMQM conference this week: Phil will be talking about some of our 2D materials research at 0900 on Wednesday in B.H05, and Bruno will be talking specifically about TiSe2 at 1445 on Wednesday in LT2
New preprint on developing strategies for uniform layer growth of 2D materials by MBE: arxiv.org/abs/2506.04388
Substrate pre-sputtering for layer-by-layer van der Waals epitaxy of 2D materials
Two-dimensional transition metal chalcogenides, with their atomically layered structure, favourable electronic and mechanical properties, and often strong spin-orbit coupling, are ideal systems for fu...
arxiv.org
Congratulations to Sebastian for successfully defending his thesis on "Probing and controlling charge order in van der Waals heterostructures of TiSe2"
Two new preprints from our work on epitaxial van der Waals heterostructures: arxiv.org/abs/2506.01470 shows excitons aren't required to drive the charge-density wave phase transition in TiSe2, and arxiv.org/abs/2506.00449 reveals signatures of moiré lattice formation in NbSe2-based heterostructures.
Persistence of charge ordering instability to Coulomb engineering in the excitonic insulator candidate TiSe$_2$
TiSe$_2$ has long been considered one of the best candidate materials to host the elusive excitonic insulator (EI) phase. However, a finite coupling to the lattice can generically be expected, while a...
arxiv.org
Find us at CORPES 2025 - Shu will be presenting a poster about moiré signatures in epitaxial NbSe2/graphite heterostructures, Marieke on ARPES studies of RuO2 from FIB-prepared cleaving planes, and Andela on micro-ARPES studies of polar domains in Ca3Ru2O7. www.pks.mpg.de/corpes25
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems Strong correlations and angle-resolved photoemission
pks.mpg.de
Find us at the EMRS conference in Strasbourg - Phil will be talking about van der Waals monolayers and heterostructures in session B13 on Thursday.
Paper on phase-selective growth control and magnetic properties of monolayer CrTe2 and Cr2Te3, together with @wahlgroup.bsky.social and @diamondlightsource.bsky.social, out now in npj Quantum Materials: rdcu.be/enrwg
From ferromagnetic semiconductor to antiferromagnetic metal in epitaxial CrxTey monolayers
npj Quantum Materials - From ferromagnetic semiconductor to antiferromagnetic metal in epitaxial CrxTey monolayers
rdcu.be
We are taking applications for the URF call (royalsociety.org/grants/unive...). Candidates should submit their application documents (draft for the 4 page proposal (royalsociety.org/-/media/gran...) and an up to date CV) by 1 July to physdor@st-andrews.ac.uk. Candidates will be informed by 4th July.
University Research Fellowship | Royal Society
This scheme is for outstanding scientists who are in the early stages of their research career and have the potential to become leaders in their field. These long-term fellowships provide the opportun...
royalsociety.org
New preprint with @wahlgroup.bsky.social on the electronic structure of antiferromagnetic monolayer CrTe2: arxiv.org/abs/2505.07942
Electronic structure of monolayer-CrTe$_2$: an antiferromagnetic 2D van der Waals material
Magnetic van der Waals materials are an important building block to realize spintronic functionalities in heterostructures of two-dimensional (2D) materials. Yet, establishing their magnetic and elect...
arxiv.org
Meet us at the @materials-mrs.bsky.social conference in Seattle this week. Phil will be talking about our recent work on 2D magnets in QT02.06 on Wednesday.
We're pleased to be back on beamtime again - this time at the excellent I05 beam line at @diamondlightsource.bsky.social