Dr. Tiglet Besara has only been at Missouri State University a couple years, but he is already making himself known.

Besara, assistant professor of physics, recently published new work on a titanium gold compound.

About his research

Titanium and gold are not magnetic.

If you combine them, the new compound becomes magnetic. This makes it an antiferromagnet. It only remains magnetic when it is below 36 Kelvin.

“Think of atoms as incredibly small magnets that can align themselves with their neighbors, like the needle of a compass,” Besara said. “When many atoms align, one gets magnetism.”

In this compound, the atoms align in such a way that their compass needles point in alternating directions, creating an antiferromagnet. Sometimes, they align where it is antiferromagnet.

Finding two nonmagnetic materials and combining them into one is rare.

This is what Besara and his collaborators found in 2015. Since then, they have been working on manipulating this titanium and gold mixture.

Results

In 2017, they tested how scandium would affect the compound. They replaced some of the titanium with scandium. By adding new elements, it gives the allusion that one is positive or negative pressure. There was minimal disorder in the altered compound and a lowering of the point when it becomes magnetic to extremely low temperatures.

Besara’s new publication, “Effects of Chemical Disorder in the Itinerant Antiferromagnet Ti1-xVxAu,” looked at how vanadium would affect the compound.

The results were different. The addition of vanadium induced disorder up until the compound refused to take in more.

In addition, the point where it becomes magnetic was lowered to 17 Kelvin for small amounts of vanadium. When the compound would take no more vanadium, its magnetism point was 10 Kelvin.

Though Besara isn’t sure what this research will do, he does know where he hopes it will go.

“This research hints at a complex and interesting relationship between structure and properties such as magnetization and resistivity, a relationship can that be explored further,” Besara said.