Overview

Dr. Steven Paul Hepplestone areas of research is in theoretical physics, with a principle focus on interfaces and their application to renewables.

The physics behind joining two materials together and their resultant properties is highly fascinating. New materials can form, which are supported by the effects created by the two adjacent "bulk" materials. On its own, the search for and discovery of new materials is exciting, but add to this the additional factors arising from interfaces and there is a multitude of interesting things to explore.

Our planet is in crisis, and as scientists, we are in a race against time to find technologies that may help us mitigate or avoid a climate disaster. This can be rechargeable batteries, thermoelectrics, solar cells or new ways to produce clean fuels but all of these have critical role to play in our future society. As a theorist, developing new materials and technologies to tackle this is one aspect of our research. In addition, theory can help tackle how to optimise a material or device and often provide critical data to industry and experimentalists as to how to get a device optimised or working.

Our groups website is https://artemis-materials.co.uk/

A list of research topics can be found here

2020-PRESENT - SENIOR LECTURER: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

2016-2020 LECTURER: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

2015-2016 - SENIOR SCIENTIST: DEREGALLERA
Developed energy storage solutions in terms of rechargeable batteries and capacitors.

2011-2014 - POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW: UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON,
Investigated the behaviour of metal/semiconductor interfaces and the arising physics.

2010- 2011 - RESEARCHER: JOINT BETWEEN ELEMENT 6 AND UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
Transport behavior of delta-doped diamond transistors.

2006-2010 - POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Thermal properties of thermoelectrics and phononic structures.

2003-2006 - PHD: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Thermal properties of semiconducting nanostructures.

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2004 |

2024

• Pitfield J, Taylor NT, Hepplestone SP. (2024) Predicting Phase Stability at Interfaces, Physical Review Letters, volume 132, no. 6, article no. 066201, DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.132.066201. [PDF]
• Price CJ, Baker EAD, Hepplestone SP. (2024) Properties of Layered TMDC Superlattices for Electrodes in Li-Ion and Mg-Ion Batteries, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, volume 128, no. 5, pages 1867-1876, DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.3c05155. [PDF]
• Baker EAD, Price CJ, Hepplestone SP. (2024) Computational Study of the Enhancement of Graphene Electrodes for Use in Li–Ion Batteries via Forming Superlattices with Transition Metal Dichalcogenides, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, volume 128, no. 2, pages 723-731, DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.3c06300. [PDF]

2023

• Price CJ, Hepplestone SP. (2023) Intercalation-dependent elastic properties of transition metal dichalcogenides, Journal of Materials Chemistry C, volume 11, no. 41, pages 14278-14291, DOI:10.1039/d3tc02106h.
• Price CJ, Baker EAD, Hepplestone SP. (2023) First principles study of layered transition metal dichalcogenides for use as electrodes in Li-ion and Mg-ion batteries, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, volume 11, no. 23, pages 12354-12372, DOI:10.1039/d3ta00940h. [PDF]
• Taylor NT, Hepplestone SP. (2023) Effect of charge transfer on band alignment in 2D|3D heterostructures: A study of HfS2|HfO2 interfaces, Physical Review B, volume 107, no. 20, article no. 205302, DOI:10.1103/physrevb.107.205302. [PDF]
• Price CJ, Pitfield J, Baker EAD, Hepplestone SP. (2023) First principles study of layered scandium disulfide for use as Li-ion and beyond-Li-ion batteries, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, volume 25, no. 3, pages 2167-2178, DOI:10.1039/d2cp05055b. [PDF]

2022

• Chan TH, Taylor NT, Sundaram S, Hepplestone SP. (2022) Phase Stability and Electronic Properties of Hybrid Organic–Inorganic Perovskite Solid Solution (CH(NH₂)₂)_x(CH₃NH₃)_1–xPb(Br_yI_1–y)₃ as a Function of Composition, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, volume 126, no. 32, pages 13640-13648, DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.2c03555. [PDF]
• Baker EAD, Pitfield J, Price CJ, Hepplestone SP. (2022) Computational analysis of the enhancement of photoelectrolysis using transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, volume 34, no. 37, pages 375001-375001, DOI:10.1088/1361-648x/ac7d2c. [PDF]
• Hepplestone S, Price C. (2022) Demonstrating an Enhancement of SnS2 via Superlattice Structuring for use in Li Batteries from First Principles - Calculation Dataset.
• Price C, Hepplestone S. (2022) Demonstrating an Enhancement of SnS2 via Superlattice Structuring for use in Li Batteries from First Principles - Data.
• Mastria R, Riisnaes KJ, Bacon A, Lam HT, Chan THE, De Marco L, Polimeno L, Hepplestone S, Craciun MF, Russo S. (2022) 2D hybrid perovskite for light sensing, Proceedings of the nanoGe Spring Meeting 2022, DOI:10.29363/nanoge.nsm.2022.146.

2021

• Davies F. (2021) Methods and Trends is 2D van der Waals Heterostructures.
• Davies FH, Price CJ, Taylor NT, Davies SG, Hepplestone SP. (2021) Band alignment of transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures, Physical Review B, volume 103, no. 4, article no. 045417, DOI:10.1103/physrevb.103.045417. [PDF]

2020

• Taylor N. (2020) Ab Initio Exploration of Interface Structures and Their Properties.
• Taylor N, Galbiati A, Saavedra M, Hepplestone S. (2020) Calcium-Stannous Oxide Solid Solutions for Solar Devices, Applied Physics Letters, volume 117, no. 15, pages 153901-153901, DOI:10.1063/5.0024947. [PDF]
• Taylor N, Galbiati A, Saavedra M, Hepplestone S. (2020) Calcium-Stannous Oxide Solid Solutions for Solar Devices. [PDF]
• Tatnell DM, Heath MS, Hepplestone SP, Hibbins AP, Hornett SM, Horsley SAR, Horsell DW. (2020) Coupling and confinement of current in thermoacoustic phased arrays, Sci Adv, volume 6, no. 27, DOI:10.1126/sciadv.abb2752. [PDF]
• Fitch SDS, Cibin G, Hepplestone SP, Garcia-Araez N, Hector AL. (2020) Solvothermal synthesis of Sn₃N₄as a high capacity sodium-ion anode: theoretical and experimental study of its storage mechanism, JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A, volume 8, no. 32, pages 16437-16450, DOI:10.1039/d0ta04034g. [PDF]
• Taylor N, Davies F, Rudkin IEM, Price C, Chan E, Hepplestone S, Taylor N. (2020) ARTEMIS: Ab initio Restructuring Tool Enabling the Modelling of Interface Structures, Computer Physics, volume 257, pages 107515-107515, DOI:10.1016/j.cpc.2020.107515.
• Tatnell DM, Heath MS, Hepplestone SP, Hibbins AP, Hornett SM, Horsley SAR, Horsell DW. (2020) Coupling and confinement of current in thermoacoustic phased arrays, Science Advances, volume 6, no. 27, DOI:10.1126/sciadv.abb2752. [PDF]
• Taylor N, Hepplestone S, Chan E, Davies FH, Price C, Rudkin I. (2020) ARTEMIS: Ab initio Restructuring Tool Enabling the Modelling of Interface Structures - v. 1.0.1. [PDF]
• Taylor NT, Price CJ, Petkov A, Romanis Carr MI, Hale JC, Hepplestone SP. (2020) The Potential of Overlayers on Tin-based Perovskites for Water Splitting, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, volume 11, no. 10, pages 4124-4130, DOI:10.1021/acs.jpclett.0c00964. [PDF]
• Taylor N, Price C, Petkov A, Carr MIR, Hale JC, Hepplestone S. (2020) The Potential of Overlayers on Tin-Based Perovskites for Water-Splitting, DOI:10.24378/exe.2304.
• Taylor N, Davies F, Rudkin IEM, Price C, Hepplestone S, Chan E. (2020) ARTEMIS: Ab initio Restructuring Tool Enabling the Modelling of Interface Structures - v. 1.0.0, DOI:10.24378/exe.2303. [PDF]

2019

• Taylor NT, Davies FH, Davies SG, Price CJ, Hepplestone SP. (2019) Colossal Permittivity: The Fundamental Mechanism Behind Colossal Permittivity in Oxides (Adv. Mater. 51/2019), Advanced Materials, volume 31, no. 51, DOI:10.1002/adma.201970359.
• Taylor N, Hepplestone S, Price C, Davies S, Davies F. (2019) The Fundamental Mechanism Behind Colossal Permittivity in Oxides, DOI:10.24378/exe.2123. [PDF]
• Taylor NT, Davies FH, Davies SG, Price CJ, Hepplestone SP. (2019) The Fundamental Mechanism Behind Colossal Permittivity in Oxides, Advanced Materials, volume 31, no. 51, DOI:10.1002/adma.201904746. [PDF]

2018

• De Sanctis A, Amit I, Hepplestone SP, Craciun MF, Russo S. (2018) Strain-engineered inverse charge-funnelling in layered semiconductors, DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1801.09434.
• Mohamed AH, Oxland R, Aldegunde M, Hepplestone SP, Sushko PV, Kalna K. (2018) Narrowing of band gap at source/drain contact scheme of nanoscale InAs–nMOS, Solid-State Electronics, volume 142, pages 31-35, DOI:10.1016/j.sse.2018.01.006.
• Sanctis AD, Amit I, Hepplestone SP, Craciun MF, Russo S. (2018) Strain-engineered inverse charge-funnelling in layered semiconductors, Nature Communications, volume 9. [PDF]

2017

• Hepplestone SP, Taylor NT, Davies F. (2017) First principles electronic and elastic properties of fresnoite Ba2TiSi2O8, Materials Research Express, volume 4, pages 125904-125904, DOI:10.1088/2053-1591/aa99e8.

2015

• Aldegunde M, Hepplestone SP, Sushko PV, Kalna K. (2015) Multi-scale Simulations of Metal-Semiconductor Nanoscale Contacts, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, volume 647, no. 1, DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/647/1/012030.
• Chambers SA, Du Y, Gu M, Droubay TC, Hepplestone SP, Sushko PV. (2015) Dominance of interface chemistry over the bulk properties in determining the electronic structure of epitaxial metal/perovskite oxide heterojunctions, Chemistry of Materials, volume 27, no. 11, pages 4093-4098, DOI:10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b01118.
• Schusteritsch G, Hepplestone SP, Pickard CJ. (2015) First-principles structure determination of interface materials: The NixInAs nickelides, Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, volume 92, no. 5, DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.92.054105.

2014

• Aldegunde M, Hepplestone SP, Sushko PV, Kalna K. (2014) Multi-scale simulations of a Mo/n⁺-GaAs Schottky contact for nano-scale III-V MOSFETs, Semiconductor Science and Technology, volume 29, no. 5, DOI:10.1088/0268-1242/29/5/054003.
• Aldegunde M, Kalna K, Hepplestone SP, Sushko PV. (2014) Multi-scale simulations of metal-semiconductor contacts for nano-MOSFETs, 2014 International Workshop on Computational Electronics, IWCE 2014, DOI:10.1109/IWCE.2014.6865836.
• Hepplestone SP, Sushko PV. (2014) Effect of metal intermixing on the Schottky barriers of Mo(100)/GaAs(100) interfaces, Journal of Applied Physics, volume 116, no. 19, DOI:10.1063/1.4902009.

2013

• Balmer RS, Friel I, Hepplestone S, Isberg J, Uren MJ, Markham ML, Palmer NL, Pilkington J, Huggett P, Majdi S. (2013) Transport behavior of holes in boron delta-doped diamond structures, Journal of Applied Physics, volume 113, no. 3, DOI:10.1063/1.4775814. [PDF]
• Aldegunde M, Hepplestone SP, Sushko PV, Kalna K. (2013) Multi-scale simulation of transport via a Mo/n⁺-GaAs schottky contact, Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, volume 1553, DOI:10.1557/opl.2013.1057.

2011

• Srivastava GP, Hepplestone SP. (2011) Theory of phonon conductivity of semiconductor superlattices, Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, volume 1347, pages 8-13, DOI:10.1557/opl.2011.1312.
• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2011) Lattice dynamics and thermal properties of phononic semiconductors, PHYSICAL REVIEW B, volume 84, no. 11, article no. ARTN 115326, DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.84.115326. [PDF]

2010

• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2010) Theory of interface scattering of phonons in superlattices, PHYSICAL REVIEW B, volume 82, no. 14, article no. ARTN 144303, DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.82.144303. [PDF]
• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2010) Phononic gaps in thin semiconductor superlattices, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, volume 107, no. 4, article no. ARTN 043504, DOI:10.1063/1.3285415. [PDF]

2009

• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2009) Anharmonic lifetime of phonons in nanophononic semiconductors, Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, volume 1172, pages 66-71, DOI:10.1557/proc-1172-t03-09.

2008

• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2008) Hypersonic modes in nanophononic semiconductors, Phys Rev Lett, volume 101, no. 10, DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.105502. [PDF]

2007

• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2007) Frequency and Temperature Dependence of Anharmonic Phonon Relaxation Rate in Carbon Nanotubes, PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NANOSCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, volume 61, pages 414-419, DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/61/1/083. [PDF]
• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2007) Frequency and temperature dependence of anharmonic phonon relaxation rate in carbon nanotubes, The International Conference on Nanoscience and Technology (ICN&T 2006), Basel, Switzerland, 30th Jul - 4th Aug 2006, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, volume 61, pages 414-419, DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/61/1/084.
• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2007) Low-temperature mean-free path of phonons in carbon nanotubes, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, volume 92, no. 1, DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/92/1/012076.

2006

• Hepplestone SP, Ciavarella AM, Janke C, Srivastava GP. (2006) Size and temperature dependence of the specific heat capacity of carbon nanotubes, Surface Science, volume 600, no. 18, pages 3633-3636, DOI:10.1016/j.susc.2005.12.070.
• Srivastava GP, Hepplestone SP. (2006) Phonon-phonon interactions in single-wall carbon nanotubes, Physical Review B, volume 74, no. 16, DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.74.165420.
• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2006) The intrinsic lifetime of low-frequency zone-centre phonon modes in silicon nanowires and carbon nanotubes, Applied Surface Science, volume 252, no. 21, pages 7726-7729, DOI:10.1016/j.apsusc.2006.03.059.
• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2006) Lattice dynamics of silicon nanostructures, Nanotechnology, volume 17, no. 13, pages 3288-3298, DOI:10.1088/0957-4484/17/13/035.

2004

• Hepplestone SP, Srivastava GP. (2004) The lattice dynamics of rectangular silicon nanowires, Physica Status Solidi C: Conferences, volume 1, no. 11, pages 2617-2620, DOI:10.1002/pssc.200405389.

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