John Loveday (physicist)

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John Stephen Loveday is an experimental physicist working in high pressure research. He was educated at Coopers School [ citation needed ] in Chislehurst and at the University of Bristol, from where he took his PhD in Physics. He currently works as a Reader in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. [1] [2]

Loveday is considered one of the pioneers of neutron diffraction at high pressure[ citation needed ] and was a founder member of the Paris–Edinburgh high-pressure neutron diffraction collaboration. His specialism is in techniques for high-pressure neutron scattering and examining the application of these techniques for investigating structures and transitions in planetary ices, hydrates, water and other simple molecular systems. He is the author of more than seventy papers and his work on the behaviour of clathrate hydrates at high pressure and their relevance to models of planetary bodies including Titan was published in Nature and has been highly cited. [2] [3]

In 2004 he helped establish the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions,[ citation needed ] where he works with Andrew D. Huxley and Paul Attfield.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clathrate hydrate</span> Crystalline solid containing molecules caged in a lattice of frozen water

Clathrate hydrates, or gas hydrates, clathrates, or hydrates, are crystalline water-based solids physically resembling ice, in which small non-polar molecules or polar molecules with large hydrophobic moieties are trapped inside "cages" of hydrogen bonded, frozen water molecules. In other words, clathrate hydrates are clathrate compounds in which the host molecule is water and the guest molecule is typically a gas or liquid. Without the support of the trapped molecules, the lattice structure of hydrate clathrates would collapse into conventional ice crystal structure or liquid water. Most low molecular weight gases, including O2, H2, N2, CO2, CH4, H2S, Ar, Kr, and Xe, as well as some higher hydrocarbons and freons, will form hydrates at suitable temperatures and pressures. Clathrate hydrates are not officially chemical compounds, as the enclathrated guest molecules are never bonded to the lattice. The formation and decomposition of clathrate hydrates are first order phase transitions, not chemical reactions. Their detailed formation and decomposition mechanisms on a molecular level are still not well understood. Clathrate hydrates were first documented in 1810 by Sir Humphry Davy who found that water was a primary component of what was earlier thought to be solidified chlorine.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atmosphere of Titan</span> Only thick atmosphere of any moon in the Solar System

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allotropes of boron</span> Materials made only out of boron

Boron can be prepared in several crystalline and amorphous forms. Well known crystalline forms are α-rhombohedral (α-R), β-rhombohedral (β-R), and β-tetragonal (β-T). In special circumstances, boron can also be synthesized in the form of its α-tetragonal (α-T) and γ-orthorhombic (γ) allotropes. Two amorphous forms, one a finely divided powder and the other a glassy solid, are also known. Although at least 14 more allotropes have been reported, these other forms are based on tenuous evidence or have not been experimentally confirmed, or are thought to represent mixed allotropes, or boron frameworks stabilized by impurities. Whereas the β-rhombohedral phase is the most stable and the others are metastable, the transformation rate is negligible at room temperature, and thus all five phases can exist at ambient conditions. Amorphous powder boron and polycrystalline β-rhombohedral boron are the most common forms. The latter allotrope is a very hard grey material, about ten percent lighter than aluminium and with a melting point (2080 °C) several hundred degrees higher than that of steel.

A Bjerrum defect is a crystallographic defect which is specific to ice, and which is partly responsible for the electrical properties of ice. It was first proposed by Niels Bjerrum in 1952 in order to explain the electrical polarization of ice in an electric field. A hydrogen bond normally has one proton, but a hydrogen bond with a Bjerrum defect will have either two protons or no proton. D-defects are more energetically favorable than L-defects. The unfavorable defect strain is resolved when a water molecule pivots about an oxygen atom to produce hydrogen bonds with single protons. Dislocations of ice Ih along a slip plane create pairs of Bjerrum defects, one D defect and one L defect.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Soper</span>

Alan Kenneth Soper FRS is an STFC Senior Fellow at the ISIS neutron source based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul F. McMillan</span> Scottish-born chemist (1956–2022)

Paul Francis McMillan was a British chemist who held the Sir William Ramsay Chair of Chemistry at University College London. His research considered the study of matter under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure, with a focus on phase transitions, amorphisation, and the study of glassy states. He has also investigated the survival of bacteria and larger organisms (tardigrades) under extreme compression, studies of amyloid fibrils, the synthesis and characterisation of carbonitride nanocrystals and the study of water motion in confined environments. He has made extensive use of Raman spectroscopy together with X-ray diffraction and neutron scattering techniques.

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Ice IV is a metastable high-pressure phase of ice. It is formed when liquid water is compressed with an immense force.

Vanessa K. Peterson is a Neutron Instrument Scientist, at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). She established an independent research program at ANSTO which specialised on improving understanding of energy systems and how they work. She manages the Echidna program, a high-resolution powder diffractometer, as well as Wombat - a high-intensity powder diffractometer. Peterson's expertise includes synchtron and laboratory x-ray techniques, as well as neutron powder diffraction, as well as single crystal x-ray diffraction.

Helen Maynard-Casely is an instrument scientist at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in Sydney, Australia. She has won numerous prizes and is an advocate for the participation of women in STEM.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Loerting</span> Austrian chemist

Thomas Loerting is an Austrian chemist and associate professor at the University of Innsbruck. His research focuses on amorphous systems, the physics and chemistry of ice and chemistry at low temperatures.

Richard John Nelmes,, , is a British crystallographer, currently Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. As chair of the university's Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions (CSEC), he studies the behaviour of crystal structures and materials such as ice, methane, and silicon at pressures of up to 1 million times normal atmospheric pressure.

References

  1. "John Loveday's home page".
  2. 1 2 Loveday, J. S.; Nelmes, R. J. (2008). "High-pressure gas hydrates". Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 10 (7): 937–950. Bibcode:2008PCCP...10..937L. doi:10.1039/B704740A. hdl: 1842/3987 . PMID   18259632.
  3. Loveday, J. S.; Nelmes, R. J.; Guthrie, M.; Belmonte, S. A.; Allan, D. R.; Klug, D. D.; Tse, J. S.; Handa, Y. P. (2001). "Stable methane hydrate above 2 GPa and the source of Titan's atmospheric methane". Nature. 410 (6829): 661–663. doi:10.1038/35070513. PMID   11287946. S2CID   4416755.