Susannah Speller

I have tutored Materials Science undergraduates since starting my DPhil studies in 2000, firstly at Trinity College and then as a stipendiary lecturer at St Catherine’s College. I mainly teach topics relating to electronic properties of materials and phase transformations. In the Department of Materials I currently lecture the first-year “Electricity and Magnetism” course and a third-year options course on 'Superconducting Materials', as well as running an annual workshop on tutorial teaching. I supervise graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, mainly in the area of applied superconductivity and thin films for battery applications.

My research group specialises in understanding relationships between processing, microstructure and properties in a wide range of superconducting materials. The Centre for Applied Superconductivity is based in the University of Oxford and carries out pre-competitive research with local industrial partners such as Oxford Instruments, Siemens Magnet Technology, Tokamak Energy and RAL and CCFE. In addition to my interests in applied superconductivity, I also work on understanding the fundamental properties of novel superconductors, such as Fe-pnictides and chalcogenides, using advanced electron microscopy and synchrotron-based photoemission microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to assess chemical and structural uniformity in these complex materials.

Mousavi, T. Chen, X., Doerrer, C., Jagger, B., Speller, S.C., Grovenor, C.R.M, ‘Solid Fabrication of Li1+xAlxGe2-x(PO4)3 thin films by sputtering for solid electrolytes’, State Ionics Volume 354 (15 October 2020), Article number 115397

Matthews, G.A.B.Email Author, Santra, S., Ma, R., Grovenor, C.R.M., Grant, P.S., Speller, S.C., ‘Effect of the sintering temperature on the microstructure and superconducting properties of MgB2 bulks manufactured by the field assisted sintering technique’, Superconductor Science and Technology Volume 33, Issue 5 (1 May 2020), Article number 054003

Coldea, A.I., Blake, S.F., Kashara, S., Haghigharad, A.A., Watson, M.D., Knafo, W., Choi, E.S., McCollam, A., Reiss, P., Yamashita, T., Bruma, M. Speller S. et al, ‘Evolution of the Fermi surface of the nematic superconductors FeSe1-xSx’, Quantum Materials (2019) 4, 2

Santra, S., Davies, T., Matthews, G., Liu, J., Grovenor, C.R.M., Speller, S.C., ‘The effect of the size of NbTi filaments on interfacial reactions and the properties of InSn-based superconducting solder joints’, Materials & Design (2019) 176

Dudin, P., Herriott, D., Davies, T., Krzton-Maziopa, A., Pomjakushina, E., Conder, K., Cacho, C., Yates, J.R., Speller, S.C., ‘Imaging the local electronic and magnetic properties of intrinsically phase separated Rb-x(Fe2-ySe2 superconductor using scanning microscopy techniques’, Superconductor Science & Technology (2019) 42: 4

Durrell, J.H., Ainslie, M.D., Zhou, D., Vanderbemden, P., Bradshaw, T., Speller, S., Filipenko, M., Cardwell, D.A., ‘Bulk superconductors: a roadmap to applications’, Superconductor Science & Technology 31: 10