Recent two decades of research on silver(II) fluorides led to realization of their unusual properties, encompassing: marked covalence of Ag–F bonds [1], strong Ag-Ag superexchange [1,2], atypical high pressure phase transitions [3], and close similarity to copper(II) oxides [1,2,3,4] and to BaBiO3 [4] (magnetic/CDW precursors of superconductivity). When properly nanoengineered and doped, Ag(II) fluorides could become superconducting [1] with TC up to ca. 200 K [5]. Novel “chemical capacitor” setup opens a nice route to achieve doping [5,6].
Professor Wojciech Grochala’s (ur. 1972) career has been linked to the University of Warsaw (M.Sc. 1995, Ph.D. 1998, D.Sc. 2005, prof. extraord. UW 2011, prof. titular 2014, prof. ord. UW 2016). Since 2004 he leads the Laboratory of Technology of Novel Functional Materials. He spent postdoctoral stays in the USA (with Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Prize winner, at Cornell Univ.) and in the UK (with prof. Peter P. Edwards at Univ. of Birmingham). He was visiting professor at Geophysical Lab, Carnegie Institution of Washington and Cornell University. Prof. Grochala coauthors over 200 papers and book chapters as well as 3 international patents. He has promoted twelve PhD and lectured one hundred times at scientific institutes worldwide; he coauthored over two hundred fourty conference contributions. His scientific interests are in materials, inorganic, physical and computational chemistry (particularly for solids) and more recently also organic chemistry. He explores new materials for hydrogen storage, atypical compounds of divalent silver, magnetic materials and compounds of noble gases (particularly the lightest ones). For several years he has been teaching to the students of humanities at Artes Liberales College. Growing exotic plants is his hobby, so is prose and poetry writing.
[1] W. Grochala, R. Hoffmann, Angew Chem Int Ed 40(15): 2742 2001; J. Gawraczyński et al., PNAS 116(5): 1495 2019; W. Grochala et al., ChemPhysChem 4(9): 997 2003; N. Bachar et al., Phys Rev Res 4(2): 023108 2022.
[2] T. Jaroń et al., Phys Stat Sol RRL 2(2): 71 2008; D. Kurzydłowski, W. Grochala, Angew Chem Int Ed 56(34): 10114 2017.
[3] A. Grzelak et al., Dalton Trans 46(43): 14742 2017; A. Grzelak et al., Inorg Chem 56(23): 14651 2017; D. Kurzydłowski et al., Chem Commun 54(73): 10252 2018.
[4] M. Derzsi et al., Phys Rev B 105(8): L081113 2022; R. Piombo et al., Phys Rev B 106(3): 035142 2022.
[5] A. Grzelak et al., Phys Rev Mater 4(8): 084405 2020; A. Grzelak et al., Angew Chem Int Ed 60(25): 13892 2021.
[6] D. Jezierski et al., Phys Chem Chem Phys 24(26): 15705–15717 2022.
