Previous News
- 12/2021: Eunsoo's invited account has been published in Accounts of Chemical Research. This is the second Accounts of the group and it focuses on structure-activity relationships in nonprecious metal borides for hydrogen production. Great job Eunsoo! Have a look here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.accounts.1c00543
- 12/2021: Eunsoo's art describing the structure-activity relationships in non-precious metal borides for hydrogen production was selected as a cover for Accounts of Chemical Research. https://pubs.acs.org/pb-assets/images/_journalCovers/achre4/achre4_v055i001-2.jpg?0.9726525762301157
- 10/2021: Jan and Kate's invited paper on experimental and theoretical study of the ternary boride TiIrB has been published in Z. Naturforsch. B. Congrats on your first paper in the group, Kate. Great work Jan!
- 09/2021: Our collaboration with the Janka group (Saarbruecken Germany) has led to another great publication in Eur. J. Inorg. Chem., on the mixed-valent Eu2Ni8Si3 and its structural anti-Type Sr2Pt3Al8. Great job to all (including Yuemei@Warren Wilson college)!
- 07/2021: Boniface has been promoted to Full Professor, effective July 1. He is grateful to all present and past group members for their contributions over the years.
- 06/2021: Our invited paper on "a new Ferrimagnetic Boride
- 04/2021: Ardalan's invited paper on "Highly active MAB phases for hydrogen evolution" has just been published in the open access journal Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research. Enjoy reading: https://doi.org/10.
- 02/2021: Pritam's work on "Designing the first Ti3Co5B2-type magnetic borides showing RT hysteresis" has been accepted by JACS. Congrats Pritam!
- 02/2021: Ardalan, Eunsoo, Diana and Johan have teamed up to show that the highly attractive spintronic vdW compound Fe3GeTe2 (FGT) has abundant active sites on its basal plane and its edges, making it the currently best vdW HER electrocatalyst in bulk form. Published in ACS Materials Letters. Excellent job guys!
- 11/2020: Jan's work on " Direct Correlation of Mechanical Hardness and Chemical Bonding in the Borides Sc2Ir6–xPdxB " has been published by J.Phys.Che. C. Congrats Jan!
- 07/2020: Jan's work on "Site-preferential Copper Substitution for Silicon leads to Cu‑Chains in the New Ternary Silicide Ir4-xCuSi2" has just been accepted for publication in Z. Kristallographie. Excellent job to Jan. This is an invited work dedicated to Prof. Ulrich Mueller (Marburg, Germany), who is a pioneer of structural chemistry, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
- 06/2020: Our collaborative work with the Nenwa group (Yaounde, Cameroon) has yielded an exciting paper "On nanochanneled silver-deficient tris(oxalato)chromate(III) coordination polymers" recently published in Journal of Molecular Structure. Great job Pritam! See https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molstruc.2020.128642.
- 06/2020: We thank NSF for providing a one year financial support to Johan Yapo, who also is the newest group member. Congratulations Johan, welcome to the group and all the best for the future!
- 05/2020: Boniface is grateful to the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM) located in Sweden for recognizing his work with the title Fellow of IAAM (FIAAM, https://www.iaamonline.org/fellow-of-iaam).
- 05/2020: Jan and Michael's work on "Transformation of trigonal planar B4 into zigzag B4 units within the new boride series Ti2–xM1+x–δIr3+δB3 " has just been accepted for publication in Solid State Sciences. Excellent job to Jan and Michael.
- 05/2020: Hyounmyung’s final manuscript in the Fokwa group on an "Unusual Solid Solution, Cr1–xMoxB2, that shows Canonic-Like c-lattice parameter and HER Activity, enabling the x = 0.6 member to overpower the benchmark Pt/C at High Current Density” has just been accepted for publication in Advanced Materials. Excellent job Hyounmyung! See https://doi.org/10.1002/
- 04/2020 Our collaborative work with the Janka group (now at "Universität des Saarlandes", Germany) has yielded an exciting paper "On the Formation of the Gd3Ru4Al12 versus the Y2Co3Ga9 Type Structure" recently published in Dalton Transactions. Great job Prof. Yuemei Zhang! See https://doi.org/10.1039/D0DT00521E.
- 04/2020: Eunsoo’s work on a "Vanadium boride electrocatalysts showing an unexpected boron chain dependency of their HER activity that also enables predictions” has just been accepted by Angew. __Chem. Excellent job Eunsoo! See https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.
- 03/2020 Our collaborative work with the Janka group has yielded another exciting paper in Mater.Chem.Front. Great job Prof. Yuemei Zhang! See https://doi.org/10.1039/
- 01/2020: First collaborative paper with the Slabon group at Stockholm University (Sweden) on "Nanostructured Core-Shell Metal Boride-Oxide as Highly Efficient Electrocatalysts for Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation" has just been published online in Nanoscale. Excellent job to all!
- 01/2020: Our collaborative work (Z. Naturforschung B) with the Janka group (Muenster-Germany) is dedicated to Professor Arndt Simon on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
- 01/2020: Ardalan's first paper on "the first MAB Li-ion battery materials" has just been accepted in JMCA and invited for Cover. Thanks to the continued collaboration with the Guo group (CEE)! Excellent job Ardalan!
- 01/2020: Pritam's work on a "delicate balancing act between AFM and FM in magnetic borides" has been published in Chem.Eur.J. and invited for Insite Cover. Congrats Pritam!
- 01/2020: Raja's work on a new 250 K vdW ferromagnet (FG2T) showing large PMA has been published in Phys. Status Solidi RRL. Thanks to the Shi group (Physics) for the great collaboration! Great job Raja!
- 09/2019: Hyounmyung, whose first publication in the group is ranked as highly cited by web of science (see here), has successfully defended his PhD thesis in the Chemical and Environmental Engineering (CEE) program. Congratulations!
- 09/2019: Hyounmyung has accepted a position as Researcher at Hyundai Motor Company. Congratulations!
- 08/2019: Pritam, the first recipient of the Haddon Award (see below), has successfully defended his PhD thesis. Pritam is the first member of the Fokwa group @UCR to graduate with a PhD (sixth overall)! Congratulations.
- 08/2019: Pritam has accepted a position as PTD Module Engineer at Intel Corporation. Congratulations!
- 08/2019: Our invited Cover Picture has been designed and published in ChemSusChem. Check it out here.
- 07/2019: Our work on New Additions to the Cesium Lithium Chloride System has been accepted and published online by Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. Great job to all, especially Justin (undergrad) and Teresa.
- 06/2019: Teresa has accepted an Associate Editor position in Berlin (Germany) and will join the editorial team of Communications Chemistry, a new journal of Springer Nature. We wish her all the best for the future!
- 06/2019: Successful collaboration with the Shi group (Physics) leads to a paper in Nano.Lett. on Highly efficient spin-orbit torque and switching of layered ferromagnet Fe3GeTe2. Great job Raja!
- 06/2019: Our work on "Designing highly active high current density HER electrocatalysts: Graphene-like boron layer and tungsten as key ingredients in metal diborides" has been accepted by ChemSusChem. Great job to all, especially Hyounmyung and Yuemei!
- 06/2019: Successful collaboration with the Janka group (Muenster, Germany) leads to a paper in Chem.Eur.J. on the new intermetallic series MPtAl2 (M=Ca-Ba, Eu). Great job Yuemei!
- 06/2019: Pritam has won the 2019 Haddon Award! Congratulations on a well-deserved award. https://chem.ucr.edu/
- 05/2019: Justin has gotten accepted for the MacREU undergraduate research program and will be working in our lab full-time all summer.
- 05/2019: Jan has won the 2019 Dissertation Year Program Award! Congratulations on a well-deserved award.
- 05/2019: Raja has accepted a research associate position at ORNL. We wish him all the best for the future!
- 04/2019: Yuemei has accepted an Assistant Professor position (starting July) at Warren Wilson College. Congratulations Yuemei and all the best for the future!
- 04/2019: Abishek has accepted postdoc position at Northwestern. We wish him all the best for the future!
- 02/2019: The group welcomes a new graduate student. We wish Diana Luong (from UC Irvine) a lot of fun and great success.
- 01/2019: Our invited review on “Structural variations, relationships and properties of M2B metal borides“ has been published by J.Solid.State.Chem. Great job by Abishek, Yuemei and Jan who finished to work started by Christian (Germany).
- 01/2019: Our experimental and computational works have identified VB2 as the best HER boride electrocatalyst to date in terms of abundance, stability, and activity in acidic solution. This article is made available free of charge for a limited time by ACS Appl. Energy Mater. Well done Raja and Yuemei!
- 12/2018: Successful collaboration with the Itkis group (UCR) produces a HOT paper in Chem.Eur.J on “Hysteretic Phase Transition in a Bistable Phenalenyl Based Neutral Radical Molecular Conductor”. Great job Pritam!
- 12/2018: Successful collaboration with the Janka group (Muenster, Germany) leads to a paper in Inorg.Chem.Front. on the new pnictide series Eu14AlPn11 (Pn = As, Sb). Great job Yuemei!
- 11/2018: Our joint efforts with the Guo group (UCR) has produced a paper in Chem.Mater. on “Crystal Structure Transformation in Chevrel Phase Mo6S8 Induced by Aluminum Intercalation”. Great job Jan!
- 06/2018: Our work on the first ferrimagnetic Fe-chains in intermetallics has been accepted in Angew.Chem. This was realized by structurally distorting the surroundings of a ferromagnetic Fe-chain through HT-annealing. Excellent job by Neetika, Yuemei and Mohammed.
- 05/2018: Boniface has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, effective July 1. He is grateful to all present and past group members for their contributions over the years.
- 04/05/18: The group welcomes 2 new postdoc members from Innsbruck (Austria) and Edmonton (Canada). We wish Teresa Ortner and Abishek Iyer a lot of fun and great success.
- 04/05/18: We wish our new undergraduate students (Selena Crawford and Shreya Maharana) an awesome learning experience in the group.
- 03/2018: Our neutron and physical properties expert (Neetika Sharma) will continue her postdoc experience at Max Planck Institute of Solid State Research in Germany. We wish her great success. We thank her for her excellent contributions and look forward to collaborating further with her.
- 04/04/18: A new modification of the NbOsB superconductor has been discovered and its structure contains the rare combination of isolated boron atoms and boron chains. This work has been accepted by EJIC and invited for cover and authors profile. Great job by Ryland and Jan
- 01/05/2018: Our recently patented synthesis method will now make transition metal boride nanomaterials easy to synthesize.
We hope that this discovery will help in fulfilling the huge but nearly untapped potential of these materials.
This work has been accepted in Advanced Materials. Excellent job Raja.
- 12/15/2017: Our recently submitted XSEDE Research request that was subject to peer review has been awarded (CHE170090 New). We now have more computer resources to run our calculations. Thanks Yuemei for a great proposal.
- 10/09/2017: The prolific Ti3Co5B2 structure type continues to surprise us. Pritam's work on predicting and realizing the complex magnetic behavior of the new phase Hf2MnRu5B2 is accepted in Inorg. Chem.
- 09/30/2017: Our invited paper to honor the 60th birthday of Prof. Wolfgang Schnick (LMU Munich) has been accepted in ZAAC. Congrats to Pritam and Jan.
- 09/30/2017: Eunsoo Lee has joined the group as a graduate student. We wish him fun and great success.
- 09/07/2017 Our paper on the first molybdenum nano-boride, nano-MoB2 and its excellent HER activity is accepted and published (ASAP) by the new RSC journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels. check the link on the publication section.
- 09/04/2017 Our second paper on catalysis is accepted in JACS and already available as ASAP (check the publication section). We show that Mo2B4 possesses two boron layers (graphene-like and phosphorene-like) with contrasting activities (from DFT) for the HER.
- 08/29/2017 Our recently published paper is highlighted on the homepage of Accounts of Chemical Research (see link in the publications section, publication no. 87).
- 08/20/2017: The group recently attended the 2017 NASSCC meeting in Santa Barbara. Yuemei and Neetika had oral presentations, while Raja, Hyounmyung, Pritam and Jan presented their posters.
- 08/07/2017 Boniface has been invited to deliver seminars at several US Universities in September and October (USC Los Angeles, CS Long Beach, Univ. of Michigan, UT Rio Grande, Univ. of Houston, Texas A&M, Utah State & Univ. of Utah)
- 07/27/2017 Boniface receives UCR Omnibus Travel award in support of his upcoming travel expenses to Germany (ISBB conference and 3 invited seminars: Fribourg, Darmstadt, Augsburg, Munich).
- 07/26/17 Breaking: Our invited paper entitled: "Boron: Enabling Exciting Metal-rich Structures and Magnetic Properties" has been accepted in the high impact Journal Account of chemical Research. Congratulations to Jan and Yuemei for the great work.
- 07/17/17: Boniface and seven other Faculties featured in UCR Today (https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/
- 06/16/17: Boniface's service to the solid state community in Encyclopedia of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry (Wiley) grows, as he was recently promoted to Section Editor (starting 01/2018).
- 06/16/17: Congratulations to our undergrad (Conrad Njamfa) who was awarded a three months MARC U-STAR scholarship to carry out research in the Fokwa lab.
- 05/24/17: 30 high school students and 2 teachers from the Valley View High School visited our lab and some UCR facilities, as part of the educational outreach program of the group's recent NSF Career award. More in the outreach section soon.
- 04/2017: The group recently attended the 2017 ACS meeting in San Francisco. Yuemei gave a talk while Hyounmyung, Pritam and Jan presented their posters. check out the pics in "group activities"
- 03/20/17 HOT: Our recent paper in Angewandte Chemie has been chosen as HOT PAPER by the editors. (Note: Hot Papers are chosen by the Editors for their importance in a rapidly evolving field of high current interest.)
- 03/20/17 Breaking: Our first paper on catalysis has been accepted in Angewandte Chemie. Congratulations to Hyounmyung, Andrew (undergrad), Yuemei and Jan for this excellent work on "Boron-dependency of Mo-borides electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER)"
- 03/01/17: Boniface has been invited to present our work at the "BIT’s 3rd Annual World Congress of Smart Materials" in Bangkok (Thailand) starting March 16th.
- 03/01/17: Two new group members: Neetika joins as a postdoc while Gardenia comes as graduate student. We wish them fun and great success.
- 03/01/17: Two highly motivated undergrads have joined in the group recently: Conrad and Raymond, we wish you fun and success.
- 01/10/17: Yuemei's paper on "Computational Design of Rare-Earth-Free Magnets" has been accepted and publised in Chemistry of Materials. Great work Yuemei!
- 01/09/17: Gardenia has started her Ph.D work in the group. Welcome! We wish you fun and great success in the upcoming years.
- 12/01/16: The paper by Pritam, Patrick and Hyounmyung on "Chemical tuning of magnetic properties through Ru/Rh substitution in Th7Fe3-type borides" has been accepted for publication in Inorganic Chemistry. Good job to all.
- 11/21/16: Our group's successful grant application, which started in Germany (5 DFG grants awarded including the prestigious Heisenberg Fellowship), continues in the US with the recent NSF CAREER award to Boniface. Boniface thanks all past and new members of the Fokwa group for their valuable contributions.
- 10/13/16: The group gets bigger as two new members join this Fall:
Raja joins as a postdoc while Ryland starts his graduate studies.
We wish them fun and great success in the coming years.
- 08/18/16: Boniface is invited to present our work at two conferences in October:
* Renowned Speaker (see link) at Crystallography 2016 in Houston
* Invited Speaker at MS&T in Salt Lake City
- 08/15/16: Jan's paper on pseudogap formation and vacancy ordering in Zr2Ir2B by 11B-NMR and DFT calculations to be published in Acta Materialia soon.
- 07/17/16: Jan's paper on chemical fine-tuning of electronic properties in Sc2Ir6-xPdxB through 11B-NMR is online.
- 07/17/16: Boniface presents our recent works at two conferences: IC Chemical Bonding (Lihue, Hawaii) and GRC Solid State Chemistry (New London, New Hampshire) from July 13 - July 22.
- 05/10/16: Michael and Yeumei's paper on a new magnetic frustrated 1D Stacking of Cr3 Triangles is accepted in Inorg.Chem. Great job!
- 05/10/16: Congratulations to our two undergrads (Vikas Shukla and Andrew Encinas) who were awarded a three months RISE scholarship to carry out research in the Fokwa lab @UCR.
- 05/10/16: Congratulations to Pritam Shakhari for successfully defending his two oral examinations, thus becoming a real Ph.D candidate in Chemistry @UCR.
- 05/10/16: Congratulations to Hyounmyung Park for successfully defending his advancement to Ph.D candidacy, thus becoming a real Ph.D candidate in Chemical Engineering @UCR.
- 05/10/16: Three highly motivated undergrads have joined in the group recently: Vikas, Andrew and Paul, we wish you fun and success.
- Congratulations to Rachid Touzani (@RWTH Aachen) for successfully defending his Ph.D thesis (Dr.rer.nat.) (April 2016).
- Congratulations to Mohammed Mbarki (@RWTH Aachen) for successfully defending his Ph.D thesis (Dr.rer.nat.) (April 2016).
- Missed the talk of the Boride baron (C&EN, March 7, p37) at ACS, San Diego? Next opportunity at ICCB in Hawaii (July 2016).
- Information about the progress of our work and our group's activities is now available on the WWW due to the excellent job by Alex.
- Boniface recently accepted to serve as an Associate Editor for Encyclopedia of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry, Wiley (Solid State, Materials and Nanomaterials; General Inorganic Chemistry Principles).
- Lab update: Our first experiments (Synthesis, XRPD, ...) are possible now thanks to Pritam, Hyounmyoung and Jan, who are doing a great job setting up the lab.
- Lab update: Yuemei did a super job getting the DFT calculations (VASP, LMTO, Win2k, ...) started on the UCR Biocluster.
- Congratulations to Patrick Köhnen (@ RWTH Aachen University) who was awarded a scholarship from the DAAD through the Aachen-California Network of Academic Exchange (ACalNet) for an internship at UCLA (starting in June 2016, Group of Prof. L. Bouchard)