Research interests
Research in the Hector group has three key themes:
- Materials synthesis, including metal nitrides, thin film materials, sol-gel and solvothermal processes and porous structures.
- Materials characterisation – powder and thin film diffraction, including in situ studies and texture and stress measurements, supplemented by a suite of microscopy and spectroscopy techniques.
- Electrochemistry, including charge storage in battery and supercapacitor type cells, and electrodeposition of various materials.
We have a long-standing interest in metal nitrides, specifically the development of sol-gel and solvothermal chemistry to produce them in new forms. Metal nitrides are much less well explored than metal oxides, as oxides occur so prominently in nature in an oxygen rich atmosphere such as that on earth. However, nitrides have a number of important technological applications and are of interest for a diverse range of potential new applications – we are currently working on applications in charge storage and catalysis.
Our electrochemistry activities include the deposition of transition metals and main group elements, electrochemically assisted deposition of aligned mesoporous films and the assessment of charge storage materials, including a significant activity in the application of metal nitrides as redox supercapacitor electrodes and conversion materials in sodium and lithium batteries.
Thorough characterisation is essential to the understanding of materials. We are extensive users of the excellent powder and thin film diffraction facilities in Southampton and also carry out diffraction studies at synchrotron X-ray (Diamond Light Source) and neutron (ISIS and ILL) central facilities. We also use electron microscopy to examine microstructure and nanostructure, EDX, WDX and XPS to examine compositions, X-ray absorption spectroscopy for local structure and oxidation state information, and electrochemical techniques such as cyclic voltammetry to test pore accessibility and impedance spectroscopy to examine interfaces.
Research keywords
Inorganic materials, metal nitrides, diffraction, electrochemistry
Research group
Electrochemistry
Affiliate research group
Functional Inorganic, Materials and Supramolecular Chemistry
Research project(s)
Professor Andrew L HectorChemistry University of Southampton Highfield Southampton SO17 1BJ
Room Number: 30/2035