Congratulations to Jack, who won a poster prize at the 39th European Colloids and Interface Society (ECIS) meeting held in Bristol on 7-12th Sept 2025.
Jack wins poster prize at ECIS meeting!
Review paper published on light-responsive emulsions
Congratulations to Jack and Bea, whose review paper on light-responsive emulsions and dispersions has been published in Current Opinion in Colloid & Interface Science!
In this review, we examine recent advances in light-responsive emulsions and dispersions, highlighting how photoactive surfactants, particles and lipids can be used to tune interfacial structure, stability and release. We also discuss the key mechanisms underpinning photoswitchable, photothermal and photodestructive behaviour, identify current challenges, and suggest future research directions.
You can read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cocis.2025.101935
Congratulations Maggie!
Congratulations to Maggie Nelson, who passed her MPhil viva earlier this month! Maggie’s research explored the effects of polymer composition for luminescent waveguide encoded lattices (LWELs).
Maggie has now begun her studies for a PhD in Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We wish her the very best of luck!
New group paper published in JACS!
Congratulations to Bea whose work on the use of lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs) for solar-energy storage has been published in JACS! In this work, we explore the solvent-driven self-assembly of azobenzene photosurfactants (AzoPS) into LLCs for molecular solar thermal energy storage (MOST) applications for the first time. Using a combination of in-situ differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) with small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), we were able to unpick the structure-photoswitch-energy storage relationships in these materials, paving the way for accelerated design of similar, amphiphilic systems for future MOST technologies.
Many thanks to all the collaborators who contributed to the success of this project: Zhihang Wang, Martijn Zwijnenburg, Charlotte Edwards-Gayle, Kasper Moth-Poulsen and Nathan Cowieson.
You can read the paper here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.5c09267
PAM Group Participates in MC17
In July, the 17th International conference on materials chemistry (MC17) was held in Edinburgh, with PAM group members contributing in numerous ways.
Firstly, huge congratulations to Rachel for her excellent work as co-chair of the conference. With 150 talks and 400 posters, as well as panel discussions and sponsor exhibits, the conference was a great success, bringing together scientists from the materials chemistry community across the world. Well done Rachel!
The conference also saw many excellent presentations from group members. Bea, Georgie, and Arad gave talks on their research, while Ziqiong, Arad, Fariha, Maggie, Tom, Jack, and Bea all presented posters.
Special congratulations to Fariha, for receiving a prize for her brilliant poster!
More poster success for Maggie at A&B Forum
Massive congratulations to MPhil student Maggie Nelson for winning the prize for Best Poster at the Armourers & Brasiers Forum held in Cambridge in June! Great work Maggie!
PAM Group Success at Postgraduate Seminar Day
In June, the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy held its annual Postgraduate Seminar and Poster Day. PAM Group members Tom, Maggie and Ziqiong all presented posters on their work, while Celia gave a talk on her PhD research so far.
Special congratulations to Maggie and Ziqiong, who both received prizes for their excellent posters!
PAM Group inspires “London Wonder”
In May, Larissa, Georgie and Bea travelled to London deliver a science workshop to a group of secondary school students as part of London Wonder, an outreach programme with schools in East London organised by Big Ideas and The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.
The workshop, “Energy Explorers”, was developed as part of the EnLighten project, funded by the group’s RSC Outreach Fund. Students had great fun learning about luminescent solar concentrators, and carrying out their own experiment to work out which colour of LSC would be best for solar energy harvesting.
Group paper selected for inclusion in 2025 Popular Advances collection
We are delighted to announce that the recent group paper, “Methacrylate-based copolymers as tunable hosts for triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion”, published in Materials Advances in January this year, has been selected for inclusion in the 2025 Popular Advances collection. This collection showcases articles which have been very well received by the community. The collection can be found here: Materials Advances Popular Advances Collection 2025.
Congratulations to group members Mike, Larissa, and Georgie, and former group members Abi, Joshua, and Bethan for all of their hard work on this paper!
New group paper on self-healing polymers
Congratulations to Georgie Burgoyne Morris, whose review paper on self-healing papers for optical and photoactive applications has been published in Annual Review of Materials Research: her first paper as first author! Congratulations also to undergraduate student Leah Belson, whose Part II literature review formed an invaluable contribution to this work.
The paper is currently available as a Review in Advance, and will be published in the 2025 volume of Annual Review of Materials in July.
Self-Healing Polymers for Optical and Photoactive Systems
Georgina H. Burgoyne Morris, Leah N. Belson and Rachel C. Evans*, Annual Review of Materials Research, 2025, 55, Review In Advance
Photoactive Materials Group 