As the supply of rare earth elements becomes an increasing geopolitical issue, Akseli Mansikkamäki and his colleagues at the University of Oulu are developing molecules to address the challenge.
Technologies related to the green transition and digitalisation require tremendous amounts of different chemical elements. We cannot decide which ones we can find from Earth’s crust within Europe. Therefore, we must develop new materials from the elements that are available.
For example, nowadays more than 70 different elements – that is more than three quarters of the naturally occurring elements – are needed to manufacture a phone. At least half of these are listed as critical raw materials by the European Union.
Already today this makes the EU’s industry, defence technology and fight against climate change dependent on foreign countries. Geopolitical instability further aggravates this vulnerability.
Our research group at the University of Oulu develops molecules that could be used in future technologies. In the future, the materials constructed from these kinds of molecules could be used to replace critical raw materials.
In a recent study with doctoral researcher Anand Chekkottu Parambil, I explored how magnetic molecules could be constructed from the so-called main-group heavy metals. These metals include elements such as tin, lead and bismuth. They are available in large quantities but as metals they are not magnetic and they do not have many uses, for example, in microelectronics. But as parts of molecules, they can be used to construct magnetic materials for future applications.
In other words, we try to make ordinary chemical elements do things we never thought they could do.
Designing new materials is basic research at the border between chemistry and physics. The work conducted in the research group aims to study how the properties necessary for future technologies can be constructed into molecules and materials. The studies carried out at the University of Oulu utilise high-performance computing and theoretical methods. Practical experiments are conducted in collaboration with Canadian and British research groups.
While I obtained my doctoral degree in chemistry, I now work in theoretical physics. Chemistry and theoretical physics is not a very common combination but as an educational background it is pretty optimal when you want to understand how molecules, materials and high technology are related.
During my undergraduate studies I worked on computational main-group chemistry studying elements such as germanium, tin and lead. In my doctoral studies I started to research molecules containing rare-earth elements that have become an important focus in my career.
Chemistry and theoretical physics is not a very common combination but as an educational background it is pretty optimal when you want to understand how molecules, materials and high technology are related
Rare-earth elements are used in all the strongest magnets, and they can have fascinating magnetic properties in molecules. However, my interest in the main-group elements that were central in my bachelor’s studies has remained. Switching from chemistry to theoretical physics, I started to look at these elements from a new perspective.
When you dig deep into the physics of magnetic molecules, you start to find similarities between rare-earth magnets and certain molecules of main-group elements. And then you start asking the question: couldn’t we use main-group elements to construct magnets?
Forcing chemistry to your will is not easy. A few years ago, I started to develop models and conduct complicated calculations to see if these ideas could be realised. The results were positive and then I started to design molecular structures where magnetism could be realised. Any chemist knows that it is one thing to draw a molecule on paper and a whole other thing to synthesise it in the lab. Because of this, active discussion with worldleading researchers working on the synthesis of magnetic molecules has been essential from the start.
International collaboration is a key for practical realisation of any new material as the road from basic research to commercial application is so long that no single research group could possibly handle it alone. The discussion also allows the development of ideas and to make sure that theory and calculations are closely related to practical chemistry.
To bring out magnetism in main-group elements, they must be placed in very specific molecular structures. These usually involve very low numbers of chemical bonds around the main-group element that are very unstable.
This means the synthesis is extremely difficult and sensitive to the presence of air or moisture. Much effort must be made to design the molecules in such a wa y that the material is stable enough to be isolated.
The molecules designed so far would be unstable and only retain their magnetic properties at very low temperatures, and much further research is still required. Luckily the field of main-group chemistry is advancing fast, and today the synthesis of new kinds of molecules is possible in a wa y researchers could only have imagined a decade ago.
Some fascinating results that help in the design have been published just a couple of months ago.
Our research brings together many fields of science that are all rapidly advancing, and you discover something new all the time. What is impossible today could easily be possible next year.
Today, materials based on new types of molecules are still at an early stage of development and practical applications are few. There is a significant amount of work required to improve their operational temperatures, stability and processability before they are viable for commercial production.
The full potential of these materials in future technologies is still being discovered.
For the future of our society it is essential that the scientific foundation for the development of new materials is established today. Considering world politics, in the future the transition towards higher development stage materials in the EU is inevitable.
It is a long process that will require input from many chemists, physicists and engineers, but now it is underway.
Akseli Mansikkamäki, PhD, is a Docent and senior researcher in the field of molecular and material magnetics. The Molecular Magnetism Group at the NMR Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland combines methods of chemistry, physics and materials science with high-performance computing to understand and design new kinds of magnetic molecules and materials
First to fifty
Thanks to targeted investment, Finland has also led with Europe’s first 50-qubit superconducting quantum computer. Now commercial firms are keen to enter a rapidly growing market
Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and IQM Quantum Computers company have jointly launched Europe’s first 50-qubit superconducting quantum computer.
A three-phase development was intended to provide opportunity for academic and research institutes, as well as industry sectors to develop applications using the system, said the creators.
This saw the unveiling of a 5-qubit quantum computer in 2021, followed by a 20-qubit version in 2023 before the recent upgrading to 50-qubit. To allow wider access, three years ago the project was connected to the internet via the country’s LUMI supercomputer, operated by digitalisation enabler CSC.
A so-called ‘company entrusted with special state assignment’, CSC is 70% state owned,
with the remainder in the hands of higher education institutions.
“We are now at full speed to deliver on the growing demand for our quantum computers to drive scientific breakthroughs and ultimately reach quantum advantage," said IQM Quantum Computers co-CEO/founder Dr Jan Goetz.
UK-based Investment finance experts Heligan Group director of strategic Insights Will Ashford- Brown said the scale of global involvement in quantum made commercial quantum usage for real applications increasingly likely.
“The market for quantum computing is predicted to grow from £412 million in 2020 to £8.6 billion in 2027, but this feels instinctively like an underestimation,” he suggested.
While the market has been mostly limited to national research laboratories and supercomputing labs, tech giants are partnering startups to provide quantum-based Cloud services or developing their own machines, added Ashford-Brown.
“By the end of 2025, IBM, for example, aims to have built its own quantum computer with 1,000 qubits, the point at which quantum computers are expected to challenge the performance of classical counterparts, while Google plans to have one by 2029.”
