The Hallas Group at UBC
Crystal growth and scattering of quantum materials
The Hallas Group at UBC
Crystal growth and scattering of quantum materials
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Crystal growth and scattering of quantum materials
Welcome!
Welcome!
Anyone who has visited a museum with an exhibit on minerals knows that nature can produce beautiful crystals. However, the crystals found in nature represent only a tiny fraction of what is possible using all the ingredients on the periodic table. Furthermore, the conditions in nature are far from pristine and these naturally occurring crystals, though beautiful, often have high levels of disorder or impurities at the atomic level. In the Hallas Lab, part of the Blusson Quantum Matter Institute at the University of British Columbia, we design and grow crystals of materials that are not found in nature. In particular, the Hallas Group seeks out materials with strong quantum mechanical effects, giving rise to exotic magnetic and electronic properties. We aim to understand the behaviors of these quantum materials by studying their properties with neutrons, muons, and x-rays.
Recent News
Recent News
August 2026: Congrats to Mario González-Rivas, who successfully defended his PhD!
In this eventful month, Karl and Ashutosh also ventured to Calgary for the International Union of Crystallography Congress and we celebrated the end of summer with an undergrad symposium, where Michelle, Andy, Danielle, Signy, and Emma all delivered excellent presentations!
July 2026: This month, Abraham and Alannah attended the M2S conference in Stuttgart, followed by a trip to the Gordon Research Conference on Solid State Chemistry for Austin and Alannah.
June 2026: We were thrilled to host Samantha Otazo this month as a visiting undergrad from the group of JP Paglione at UMD. Sam used the floating zone to grow beautiful single crystals of rare earth nickelates.
May 2026: Summer is officially here! This year, we're excited to welcome four new undergrad researchers to the lab, Signy Spencer, Emma Cont, Danielle Chu, and Andy Chen, as well as returning undergrad, Michelle Huang.
April 2026: Congrats to Karl Tsang for being awarded the Canada Graduate Scholarship!
February 2026: Samikshya, Abraham, and Alannah jumped across the pond to attend Quantum Days 2026 in Victoria, BC with Alannah serving as conference chair.
January 2026: Congrats to Samikshya Sahu for successfully defending her PhD thesis! We are so proud of you!
Earlier in the month, Alannah, Andree, and Will journeyed to Maryland to attend the Fundamentals of Quantum Materials Winter School.
December 2025: This month, we bid farewell to postdoc Solveig Aamlid, who joined the group in May 2021. Solveig is starting as an Assistant Professor at Ecole Polytechnique. Congratulations Solveig and bon voyage!
November 2025: Congrats to Samikshya Sahu and Ksenia Khoroshun, who both published their first first-author papers this month! Samikshya's work helps us understand why defects are so rare in PtSn4, while Ksenia demonstrated the many ways a high entropy synthesis can turn out.
This month, Abraham and Alannah travelled to Switzerland to attend the CIFAR Quantum Materials Fall Meeting. Later in the month, Alannah and Dongjoon visited Tsukuba, Japan for the Material Aspects of Novel Quantum Systems Workshop.
October 2025: Welcome to Dr. Christopher Woodgate, who joined us from the University of Bristol for a 6-week stay thanks to funding from ICAM. Chris is a computational materials scientist and will be studying the effect of disorder on magnetism in high entropy oxides.
September 2025: It's back-to-school season and the group is excited to welcome new Chemistry PhD student Karl Tsang and Physics MSc student Lex Rouquette. We're equally excited that recent MSc grad Abraham Mancilla is sticking around for a PhD 🥳
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