chemistry

Paul Attfield

Paul Attfield is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Paul Attfield rather than just read about it. In short: John Paul Attfield (born 1962) is a British chemist who is Professor of Materials science in the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions (CSEC). Education Attfield was educated at Durham Johnston School in Durham, England and the University of Oxford where he was a student at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Key takeaways

Paul Attfield belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Paul Attfield to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Paul Attfield from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Paul Attfield (born 1962) is a British chemist who is Professor of Materials science in the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions (CSEC).

Education Attfield was educated at Durham Johnston School in Durham, England and the University of Oxford where he was a student at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry followed by a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1987 for his work on chemical crystallography supervised by Anthony Cheetham and Peter Battle.

Career and research Attfield was appointed a lecturer, and subsequently a Reader at the University of Cambridge from 1991 to 2003. Attfield's research focuses on synthesis, structural studies, and property measurements for electronic materials such as transition metal oxides. His research has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Attfield has made significant contributions to the study of the Verwey transition in magnetite, solving its charge ordering properties. 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. 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. 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.

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”. In 2016, Attield was awarded a Daiwa Adrian Prize, recognizing his work as part of a British-Japanese scientific collaboration, 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."

References

This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Paul Attfield

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Paul Attfield claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Paul Attfield before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Paul Attfield ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Paul Attfield

In research: Paul Attfield appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Paul Attfield in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Paul Attfield is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1962 births, Academics of the University of Edinburgh, Alumni of the University of Oxford, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Paul Attfield outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Paul Attfield in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Paul Attfield means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Paul Attfield out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Paul Attfield in simple terms?

Why does Paul Attfield matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Paul Attfield?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Paul Attfield.