Synthesis, Structure, and Properties of Compounds Derived from Mineral Structures

Abstract

The development of solid-state chemistry is the result of many studies on compounds belonging to structures such as perovskite, pyrochlore, spinel etc. There is a large family of compounds that belong to naturally occurring minerals that remains underexplored in terms of their chemical and physical properties. The main difficulty in studying these compounds is in synthesising them under laboratory conditions. Stabilizing the mineral structures under laboratory conditions provide many possibilities to explore newer structures and properties. The present study is motivated by the opportunity to explore the compounds that belong to the mineral structures, which would exhibit interesting physical and chemical properties. The thesis presents the results of the investigations on the synthesis, structures and the properties of compounds mostly derived from the mineral structures. The prepared compounds were found to be pure phases that emerge from many design strategies such as substitution of suitable cations, controlled reaction conditions, etc. The synthesized compounds were explored towards many properties in the areas of pigments (colored compounds) and near-infrared (NIR) reflecting behaviour, magnetic studies, dielectric, second-harmonic generation (SHG), photocatalytic activities, luminescence behaviours (color-tunable and white light emissions).