[1] Attfield's research focuses on synthesis, structural studies, and property measurements for electronic materials such as transition metal oxides.

[7] Attfield has made significant contributions to the study of the Verwey transition in magnetite, solving its charge ordering properties.

Paul Attfield has made distinctive contributions to the experimental understanding of structure in the solid-state, in particular pioneering the use of resonant X-ray scattering to study cation and valence ordering effects and characterising charge-order in strongly correlated systems such as magnetite.

[8] He introduced the cation-size variance as a concept to rationalise and predict disorder effects, with a substantial impact on the study and preparation of technologically important materials.

[8] In 2016, Attield was awarded a Daiwa Adrian Prize, recognizing his work as part of a British-Japanese scientific collaboration,[9] and in 2022 he received the John B. Goodenough Award for materials chemistry from the Royal Chemistry Society, specifically "For transformative discoveries of new materials from high pressure synthesis and of novel electronic phenomena in solids.