Paul Attfield has made distinctive contributions to the experimental understanding of structure in the solid-state, in particular pioneering the use of resonant X-ray scattering to study cation and valence ordering effects and characterising charge-order in strongly correlated systems such as magnetite.[4] He introduced the cation-size variance as a concept to rationalise and predict disorder effects, with a substantial impact on the study and preparation of technologically important materials.[4] He has synthesised and characterised new materials with novel electronic properties, including high-Tc superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance, and negative thermal expansion, including new developments in chemical synthesis.[4]
Awards and honours
Attfield was awarded the Meldola Medal and Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in 1991; the Corday-Morgan Medal of the RSC in 1998; and the Peter Day Award in 2013. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014 for “substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge”.[4] In 2016, Attield was awarded a Daiwa Adrian Prize, recognizing his work as part of a British-Japanese scientific collaboration, [9] and in 2022 he received the John B. Goodenough Award for materials chemistry from the Royal Chemistry Society, specifically "For transformative discoveries of new materials from high pressure synthesis and of novel electronic phenomena in solids." [10]