Simon Clarke

Biography

Simon Clarke was an undergraduate at St John’s College, Oxford and then a graduate student with Andrew Harrison and Matt Rosseinsky. He spent two years with Frank DiSalvo at Cornell University as a NATO Fellow before returning to Oxford as a Lloyd’s of London Tercentenary Foundation Fellow and a Junior Research Fellow at St Hugh’s College. He then spent two years as a University Lecturer at the University of Exeter before returning to Oxford as a University Lecturer in 2000. He became a Professor of Chemistry in 2014. At Exeter he teach almost all the topics in Inorganic Chemistry seeking to emphasise how the trends in the properties of the elements across and down the periodic table determine the chemistry of solids and molecules. Clarke lecture mainly on solid state chemistry – understanding crystal structures, bonding and electronic properties of solids and how they are related.  

Research Interest

  Simon Clarke's research interest focuses on solid-state synthesis and properties of classes of crystalline solid  that could have important technological applications as superconductors, ferromagnets, thermoelectric materials or battery electrodes or electrolytes. Current projects include detailed examination of the correlation of composition, crystal structure and physical properties of iron-based high-temperature superconductors, in particular, iron selenides with superconducting transition temperatures as high as 45 Kelvin, and investigation of the control using chemistry of the structure and physical properties of a series of layered transition metal oxide sulfides and selenides.