Julia Y. Chan, Ph.D.

Education

National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow
Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology - 1998 - 2000

Ph.D.
University of California, Davis - 1998

B.S.
Baylor University

Experience 

Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Baylor University - 2022 - Present

Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
The University of Texas at Dallas - 2013 - 2021

Professor of Chemistry
Louisiana State University - 2000 - 2013

Research

Our research group is focused on the discovery of new families of quantum materials. Efforts are placed on the crystal growth of strongly correlated systems to determine the structures, electrical, magnetic, and transport properties of rare-earth intermetallics to understand emergent phenomena. Although low-dimensional solids are highly anisotropic by nature and show promise in new quantum materials leading to exotic physical properties not realized in three-dimensional materials, we can extend our synthetic strategy by flux-growth methods to design single-crystalline low-dimensional materials in bulk. Could the discovery of new layered intergrowth compounds be possible by using structural subunits as building blocks? We are left with the question, “Can one take any two binary building blocks with similar lattice parameters to construct completely new intergrowth compounds?” If so, an entirely new phase space of materials can lead to exotic behavior, and most likely complex electrical and magnetic properties can be tuned by selecting the desired structural subunits.

Selected Publications and Awards

Fellow, American Chemical Society

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Deputy Editor, Science Advances (AAAS) 

‪Google Scholar‬/ ORCID

Weiland, A.; Frith, M.; Lapidus, S., Chan, J.Y., “In Situ Methods for Metal-Flux Synthesis in Inert Environments”, Chem. Mater., 2021, 33, 7657–7664.

Lai, Y.; Chan, J.Y.; Baumbach, R.E. “Electronic Landscape of the f-electron Intermetallics with the ThCr₂Si₂ Structure”, Sci. Adv. 2022, 8, eabp8264.

Dominguez Montero, A.D.; McCandless, G.T.; Oladehin, Olatunde; Baumbach, R.E.; Chan, J.Y. "Development of a Geometric Descriptor for the Strategic Synthesis of Remeika Phases" Chem. Mater., 2023, 35, 2238–2247

Wang, Y; Wu, H.; McCandless, G.T.; Chan, J.Y.; Ali, M., “Quantum States and Intertwining Phases in Kagome Materials”, Nature Rev. Phys., 2023, 5, 635–658

Kyrk, T. M.; Kennedy, E. R.; Galeano-Cabral, J.; McCandless, G. T.; Scott, M. C.; Baumbach, R. E.; Chan, J. Y. “Much More to Explore with an Oxidation State of Nearly Four: Pr valence Instability in Intermetallic  m-Pr₂Co₃Ge₅”, Sci Adv., 2024, 10, eadl2818.

Moon, A.; Li, Y.; McKeever C.; Casas, B. W.; Bravo, M.; Zheng, W.; Macy, J.; Petford-Long, A.K.; McCandless, G.T.; Chan, J. Y; Phatak, C.; Santos, E. J. G.; Balicas, L. “Writing and Detecting Topological Charges in Exfoliated Fe_5-xGeTe₂” ACS Nano 2024, 18, 4216–4228

Anderson, M.G.; Dominguez Montero, A.; Jemison, H.; Schundelmier, B.; Tateyama, H.; Altman, A.; Wei, K.; McCandless, G.T.; La Pbauierre, H.S.; Chan, J.Y., “Is a Homologous Series Member Equal to or Greater than the Sum of its Subunits?  A Focus on a Few Fe-based BaNiSn₃ subunits: LnFeGe₃ (Ln = La, Pr)”, Cryst. Growth Des., 2025, 5, 1090-1100

Dominguez Montero, A.; Stoian, S.; McCandless, G.T.; Baumbach, R.E.; Chan, J.Y., “Role of CeNiSi₂ and BaNiSn₃ Structure Types in the Emergent Properties of the Homologous Series Ln_n+1MnX_3n+1”, Chem. Mater. 2024, 36, 8534-8545

Meduri, R.; Plata, M.A.; McCandless, Ghafoor, M.; Schundelmier, B.C.; Wei, K.; Chan, J.Y., “Evolution of Structural Order and Magnetic Anisotropy in Yb_0.5(Co_1-xFe_x)₃Ge₃ through Fe Doping of a Kagome Lattice”, Chem. Mater. 2025, 37, 2302–2313

Kyrk, T. M.; Anderson, M. G.; McCandless, G. T.; Lapidus, S. H.; Chan, J. Y. “A New Furnace for in-situ X-ray Diffraction Above 1200 °C: Insights on the Role of Non-interacting Flux Concentration for Flux Growth Synthesis”, Chem. Mater., 2025, In Press

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