Scientific work

Dr. Denis G. Rancourt, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.

… was a Full Professor with tenure in the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Ottawa, a member of the Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Physics, and a member of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, when he was fired under false pretext on March 31, 2009.

(Read his statement about his dismissal HERE.)

As a scientist, Denis Rancourt has published over one hundred articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals in areas as diverse as marine geochemistry, condensed matter physics theory, materials magnetism, organic chemistry, planetary science, mineralogy, aquatic biogeochemistry, and diffraction and spectroscopic measurement theory.  

(Do a Google-Scholar search for author “DG Rancourt”.)

Main scientific discoveries and contributions:

•    Solution to the Invar Problem of metal physics

•    Description of the meteorite mineral antitaenite

•    Derivation of the fundamental quantification relation of X-ray diffraction

•    Discovery of the reactive diagenetic Fe-oxyhydroxide phase in lake and marine sediments

•    Description of the phenomenon of superferromagnetism

•    Advances in Mössbauer spectroscopy methodology

•    Advances in layer silicate crystal chemistry and geosensors

Main on-going scientific interests:

•    Reactive environmental Fe-oxyhydroxide nanoparticles

•    Environmental and mineral magnetism

•    Lake and marine early sediment diagenesis

•    Aquatic geochemistry and biogeochemistry

•    Development of measurement methods:  diffraction and spectroscopy

•    Physics education research (PER)

Some main recent scientific publications are as follows.  

Reprints available on request.

Invar Physics and Meteorite Minerals

D.G. Rancourt and M.-Z. Dang.  Relation between anomalous magneto-volume behaviour and magnetic frustration in Invar alloys.  Physical Review B 54 (1996) 12225-12231.

D.G. Rancourt, K. Lagarec, A. Densmore, R.A. Dunlap, J.I. Goldstein, R.J. Reisener, and R.B. Scorzelli.  Experimental Proof of the Distinct Electronic Structure of a New Meteoritic Fe-Ni Alloy Phase.   Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials  191 (1999) L255-L260.

K. Lagarec and D.G. Rancourt.  Fe3Ni-type chemical order in Fe65Ni35 films grown by evaporation: Implications regarding the Invar Problem.  Physical Review B   62 (2000) 978-985.

K. Lagarec, D.G. Rancourt, S.K. Bose, B. Sanyal, and R.A. Dunlap.  Observation of a composition-controlled high-moment/low-moment transition in the face centered cubic Fe-Ni system:  Invar effect is an expansion, not a contraction.   Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 236 (2001) 107-130.

D.G. Rancourt.  Invar behaviour in Fe-Ni alloys is predominantly a local moment effect arising from the magnetic exchange interactions between high moments.  Phase Transitions 75 (2001) 201-209.

Environmental Geochemistry

C. van der Zee, D. Roberts, D.G. Rancourt, C.P. Slomp.  Nanogoethite is the dominant reactive oxyhydroxide phase in lake and marine sediments.  Geology 31 (2003) 993-996.  

D.G. Rancourt, P.-J. Thibault, D. Mavrocordatos, G. Lamarche.  Hydrous ferric oxide precipitation in the presence of nonmetabolizing bacteria:  Constraints on the mechanism of a biotic effect.  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 69 (2005) 553-577.

A. Thompson, O.A. Chadwick, D.G. Rancourt, J. Chorover.  Iron-oxide crystallinity increases during soil redox oscillations.  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 70 (2006) 1710-1727.

A, Génin, J.-M. Grenèche, C. Tournassat, J. Brendlé, D.G. Rancourt, L. Charlet.  Reversible surface-sorption-induced electron-transfer oxidation of Fe(II) at reactive sites on a synthetic clay mineral.  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 71 (2007) 863-876.

P.-J. Thibault, D.G. Rancourt, R.J. Evans, and J.E. Dutrizac.  Mineralogical confirmation of a P:Fe = 1:2 limiting stoichiometric ratio in colloidal P-bearing ferrihydrite-like hydrous ferric oxide.  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73 (2009) 364-376.

Environmental and Mineral Magnetism

D.G. Rancourt.  Magnetism of Earth, planetary, and environmental nanoparticles.  In:  Nanoparticles and the Environment, J.F. Banfield and A. Navrotsky (editors), Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry  44 (2001) 217-292 (Chapter 7).

D.G. Rancourt, F. González-Lucena, P.-J. Thibault.  Magnetic granulometry from equilibrium magnetization measurements:  Mineral magnetometry of superparamagnetic particles and application to synthetic ferrihydrites.  American Mineralogist 89 (2004) 987-997.

X-ray Diffraction Theory

D.G. Rancourt and M.-Z. Dang.  Absolute quantification by powder X-ray diffraction of complex mixtures of crystalline and amorphous phases for applications in the Earth sciences.  American Mineralogist 90 (2005) 1571-1586.