Mössbauer Spectroscopy Laboratory

The main method  is the ⁵⁷Fe transmission Mössbauer spectroscopy.

The research is mainly based on iron-based superconductors and their parent compounds, which, due to the occurrence of interesting physical phenomena, are currently extensively studied in various laboratories around the world. The main objective is the search for relationship between superconductivity and magnetism in iron-based superconductors and their parent compounds. Investigations are aimed at the search for the charge density wave, spin polarization, magnetic moment and coexistence of the magnetic order and superconductivity.
Mössbauer spectroscopy is very sensitive to electron modulation (charge density wave CDW) and spin modulation (spin density wave SDW).

Cooperation:

• Institute of Low Temperature and Structural Research PAN Wroclaw, Poland
• Academic Centre for Materials and Nanotechnology, AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland
• Faculty of Chemistry, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
• Faculty of Chemistry, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
• Institute of Condensed Matter Physics, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland,
• Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

Apparatus:

Mössbauer Spectroscopy Laboratory (MSL) responsible for the experiments has the complete equipment and software. At the disposal of MSL are:

• Mössbauer spectrometers MsAa-3 and MsAa-4 made by RENON
• Janis SVT-400M cryostat covering temperature range 1.5 – 325 K with the precision better than 0.01 K
• Janis 7THL-SOM2 cryostat covering temperature range 1.5 – 325 K equipped with the superconducting magnet reaching 7.5 T
• Mössbauer data processing suite MOSGRAF with the applications fitting spectra by means of the extended transmission integral and the full Hamiltonian diagonalization.

Laboratory of Ferroics

The laboratory conducts research on dielectric, electromechanical and thermodynamic properties in ferroelectric and antiferroelectic crystals and ceramics, in particular PbZrO₃, PbHfO₃, PbTiO₃, BaTiO₃ BiFeO₃ and many other crystals as well as solid solutions based on them. The laboratory posses a unique set for measuring electrostrictive deformation using the quasi-static method.

The research in the laboratory are devoted to the problem of mechanisms responsible for phase transitions occurring in the antiferroelectric and ferroelectric compounds of the perovskite type (ABO₃) and to determine the influence of the introduction of foreign ions on their dielectric properties and electromechanical properties. The research  are carried out in a wide temperature range from 100 K to 700 K

Cooperation:

• Institute of Physics, University of Silesia in Katowice,
• Institute of Applied  Physics, WAT in Warsaw,
• Institute of Low Temperature and Structural Research PAN Wroclaw,
• ACMIN, AGH Krakow,
• Peter Grünberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany,
• Department of Physics, Hallym University, Republic of Korea.
• Department of Dielectrics, Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Apparatus:

1. A setup for measuring the dielectric properties of ferroelectric materials, which includes:
2. Setup for measurements of  electrostrictive properties of ferroelectric materials using the quasi-static method (40-200Hz).
3. Setup for measurement of piezoelectric properties of ferroelectric materials by dynamic resonance method.
4. Polarizing microscope Nikon Lv 100 Pol Dia microscope with LINKAM THMS600 heating-cooling stage (temperature range from -196 ÷ 600 ^oC) and a CCD camera. Polarizing microscope is used to study the domain structure in a birefringent crystal.
5. Netzch DSC 200 F3 Maia differential scanning calorimeter with a data acquisition program for testing of thermodynamic properties and dynamic of phase transitions  in ferroelectric materials.