Irina Chuvashova

Dr. Chuvashova’s work as a material scientist focused on creating new functional materials based on boron and Rare-Earth elements and investigating their properties at extreme conditions.

Dr. Chuvashova’s work is focused on using high pressure (which is 10,000 bigger than the atmospheric pressure) as a tool to pursue the over mentioned goals. Her research is versatile and can be applied or basic. High pressure research is the interdisciplinary science that uses the thermodynamic parameter, pressure, as an extremely powerful tool to induce and understand unique changes and properties of many materials. It extends from disciplines of geophysics and astrophysics through chemistry and physics to those of modern biology, electrical and chemical engineering. By investigating the high pressure and high temperature behaviors of elemental materials and compounds, her research sheds light on bonding evolution, phase transformations, and the development of PT-phase diagrams that are of fundamental importance in materials synthesis and their applications. In particular, Dr. Chuvashova’s research focuses on developing new materials on the base of Rare-Earth elements in combination with light elements, such as boron, nitrogen and hydrogen. She is using diamond anvil cells as a method to reach extreme conditions and laser heating that can generate high temperatures. High pressure can trigger structural, electronic, and magnetic changes in matter that are not possible at ambient conditions. Applications of this research include production of new energy-efficient and environment-friendly materials, and high-energy materials, superconductors, nonlinear optic materials. Understanding these changes through in situ study is key for its eventual exploitation in industry. 

Research Areas

• To create new functional materials with interesting and useful properties, such as extreme hardness and superconductivity
• To study the behavior of materials exposed to extreme conditions, especially high pressures (HP) and high and low temperatures (HT and LT)
• To develop new designs for experimental approaches

Education

• Postdoctoral fellow, Harvard University (USA)
• Postdoctoral researcher, Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institute of Washington (USA)
• Postdoctoral researcher, LSPM-CNRS, Université Paris Nord (France)
• PhD, Materials Science, University of Bayreuth (Germany)
• MS, Inorganic chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia)