Two Clemson graduate students recognized as emerging leaders in materials science 

When they arrived at Clemson University to attend graduate school and conduct research in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Thao Tran Dominy, the backgrounds of Xudong Huai and Ebube Oyeka could not have been more different.

Oyeka already held two master’s degrees in chemistry and had extensive research experience. Huai had just completed his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and had conducted, in his words, “experiments, not research.”

Together at Clemson, they worked on research that could lead to new advanced materials for quantum information science.

Their research was selected for inclusion in the Special Collection: Emerging Leaders in Materials Science in the journal Applied Physics Letters (APL) Materials. The special collection highlights groundbreaking research in materials science.

Silicon, one of the most abundant elements on earth, is widely used in electronics, transportation and medical devices. But much like materials from previous ages, there’s a limit to how much information it can store and the speed at which it can be calculated. That’s why researchers are looking for different ways to store and transmit information.

Unlike conventional computers that store information in binary form, quantum computers store information in multiple forms known as qubits and can explore multiple solution pathways simultaneously. However, qubits are fragile and their state is susceptible to perturbations. 

Using chemical attributes of precision, tunability and reproducibility, Tran Dominy’s lab works to create new materials that can potentially retain quantum effects at a macroscopic scale that is protected from perturbations. 

In this work, Huai and Oyeka discovered that by carefully positioning spins within a polar lattice, new pathways could be opened to modify the complex interplay between spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom through chemical bonds. They used iron in the research, but the results are translatable to other metals, Huai said. They worked with collaborators from Poland and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory on the project.

“Both are very bright scientists,” Tran Dominy said. “I’m super proud of their work and their recognition as emerging leaders for their groundbreaking research in materials science.”

Huai earned his Ph.D. from Clemson in 2024 and now works in Tran Dominy’s lab as a research scientist preparing to advance his career in academia. Oyeka earned his doctorate from Clemson in 2023 and is now an information scientist for CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.