Julian A. Steele
- ARC DECRA Fellow
- The University of Queensland, Australia
Julian A. Steele received his Ph.D. in physics in 2016 from The Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM), University of Wollongong, before undertaking postdoctoral work at KU Leuven (Belgium) and UC Berkeley (USA). From 2023, he began an Australian Research Council (ARC) Fellowship at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, working on a range of condensed matter topics. His research seeks to reveal and control the fundamental physics of emerging optoelectronic materials, spanning several subdisciplines, including crystallography, lattice dynamics, photophysics, ab initio methods.
Research topics
A prevailing paradigm within materials research is that “structure defines properties”; however, the question of “what is the structure?” often remains unanswered. While fully understanding the nature of lattice vibrations and phase transitions in dynamic materials is a formidable challenge, unlocking technologically relevant insights is crucial for making significant advances. Dr. Steele’s group is an experimental-focused team of physicists, device engineers, and chemists dedicated to uncovering the connection between atomic and molecular dynamics and emergent material properties. They develop new approaches and analytical methods to understand and control material properties at the shortest length and time scales.
Among his outputs, focus is given toward developing deep structure-property relationships, understanding phase changes in matter, the interactions between excited states and lattice vibrations, and how these features limit device performance. To achieve this, they employ a combination of state-of-the-art optical spectroscopy methods, electronic transport measurements, materials modelling and synchrotron-based techniques to address the most pressing questions. Applied research strengths including superconducting devices, LEDs, direct conversion X-ray detectors, photocatalysis, solar cells and ionic batteries. This expertise is repeatedly demonstrated through clear translation of fundamental observations into high-impact device performance metrics and physics.
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