King group @ St Andrews

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...

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

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

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...

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/...

Spatial map from micro-ARPES data showing different surface terminations of PdCoO2

Time-dependent ARPES measurements at the Pd-terminated surface

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...

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

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

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

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...

New preprint on developing strategies for uniform layer growth of 2D materials by MBE: arxiv.org/abs/2506.04388

Congratulations to Sebastian for successfully defending his thesis on "Probing and controlling charge order in van der Waals heterostructures of TiSe2"

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...

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.

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

Find us at the EMRS conference in Strasbourg - Phil will be talking about van der Waals monolayers and heterostructures in session B13 on Thursday.

From ferromagnetic semiconductor to antiferromagnetic metal in epitaxial CrxTey monolayers npj Quantum Materials - From ferromagnetic semiconductor to antiferromagnetic metal in epitaxial CrxTey monolayers

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

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...

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.

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...

New preprint with @wahlgroup.bsky.social on the electronic structure of antiferromagnetic monolayer CrTe2: arxiv.org/abs/2505.07942

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

Find us at the DPG spring conference in Regensburg next week: Naina will be talking about magnetism in monolayer CrTe2 and Cr2Te3 (Monday 0930 in H3), and Marieke will be speaking about measurements on RuO2 from structured cleave planes (Friday 1045 in H31)

Great to be back at the Burn in Brechin for the CDQM Workshop on Designer Quantum Materials

Looking forward to the retreat of the Centre for Designer Quantum Materials at the Burn and a programme (theburn2025.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk) full of exciting talks and discussions.

Pleased to be back on beamtime at Bloch @maxivlaboratory.bsky.social

Multiple fully-funded PhD studentships available within the Centre for Designer Quantum Materials@St Andrews. See our website www.quantummatter.co.uk/king for more on our research interests, and www.st-andrews.ac.uk/physics-astr... for more info on the application. Get in touch with any questions!

We are a research group at the University of St Andrews, studying electronic structure of quantum materials using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and creating new designer quantum materials via atomic layer-by-layer growth. We are pleased to now be posting on Bluesky!