Megan Holtz
Colorado School of Mines, CO·Materials Science·Early-career
How atoms are arranged in a crystal, whether in perfect order or with some disorder, shapes how a material behaves in technologies such as energy-efficient and quantum computing. Disordered arrangements are notoriously hard both to control and to measure.
- Fields
Materials Science
Physics
Engineering
- Topics
hexagonal oxides
ferroelectrics
quantum materials
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2031
What they work on
- Control symmetry and symmetry-breaking in the polar ordering of hexagonal ABO3 oxides using atomically precise molecular beam epitaxy, aiming to stabilize new ferroelectric functions and emergent phenomena.
- Advance scanning transmission electron microscopy to determine full 3D local atomic structure using scanning electron diffraction tomography, cepstral analysis and ptychography.
- Link growth and imaging in a tight feedback loop to understand how polar order and disorder set ferroelectric behavior, guiding relaxor ferroelectrics for energy storage and quantum technologies.
More about the research
This project couples precise material growth with advanced electron microscopy to build and observe atomic arrangements. The aim is to create new materials for low-energy electronics and quantum information.
Why it matters
Controlling atomic-scale order and disorder could lead to better materials for energy storage and low-power electronics. These materials could also support next-generation quantum information technologies. The new 3D microscopy methods could help other materials researchers see local atomic structure in disordered materials that are hard to study today.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kaveh Ahadi
Ohio State University, OH·Materials Science
Grow potassium tantalate niobate thin films with controlled composition and epitaxial strain by molecular beam epitaxy to map how strain and niobium content control ferroelectricity.
Andre Mkhoyan
University of Minnesota, MN·Materials Science
Identify the atomic structure and chemical makeup of unconventional line defects in perovskite oxide (ABO3) thin films using atomic-resolution analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM).
Christian Binek
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE·Physics
Engineer interfaces in oxide and van der Waals layered stacks to control magnetic and electric order, defects and spin textures, aiming at memristive devices and neuromorphic, brain-inspired computing.
The school
Colorado School of Mines: 4 labs on PI Pages, $110M a year on research, 124 research doctorates a year.
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