Congratulations to Bea Jones whose work on X-ray induced isomerisation in photoswitchable surfactants has been published in Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry. This was also Bea’s first paper as corresponding author so a double celebration!
Understanding X-ray-induced isomerisation in photoswitchable surfactant assemblies, Beatrice E. Jones*, Camille Blayo, Jake L. Greenfield, Matthew J. Fuchter, Nathan Cowieson, and Rachel C. Evans*
Rachel gave a keynote talk at the Beilstein Organic Chemistry Symposium: Harnessing Light Energy with Molecules in Limburg an der Lahn, Germany in September. This was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with the community and to present our highlights from our work on photo switchable liquid crystals.
Larissa gave a talk at the RSC Photophysics and Photochemistry Group Early Career Meeting 2024 at the University of Sheffield. It was also a great chance for her to catch up with our previous PAM member, Joshua!
We have been awarded funding from the European Research Council to further develop a photonic coating technology that aims to enhance the performance of solar cells indoors. This builds on research undertaken through the ERC SPECTRACON project and the EPSRC New Horizons grant.
The group got together to celebrate recent successes and to say goodbye and good luck to Dr Zhihang Wang, who has been appointed as a lecturer at the University of Derby. Zhihang joined the PAM group in February 2023 working on the ERC SPECTRACON project, focussing on integration of spectral converters in device architectures.
We wish Zhihang the best of luck in his new role and look forward to continued collaborations.
Rachel and Georgie both gave talks at the 50th IUPAC Macro Congress at the University of Warwick this week. This is the leading conference in polymer chemistry and attracted 1200 delegates! Great fun had by all.
We recently welcomed Tom Williamson to the group to carry our research on templated polymer lattice architectures for radiative cooling for his midi (Masters) project as part of the NanoDTC programme. The project is co-supervised by Prof. Louise Hirst. Welcome Tom!
Rachel has been promoted to Professor (grade 12)/Chair in Materials Chemistry in the latest Academic Career Pathways scheme. She thanks the fantastic Photoactive Materials group (past & present), great collaborators and colleagues, and of course, the supportive referees!
Congratulations to Dr Takashi Lawson who was recently awarded the Armourers & Brasiers postdoctoral prize (jointly with Dr Nicole Church from the Rolls Royce group).
The results were announced at the annual Armourers and Brasiers’ Cambridge Forum (18th June 2024), where PhD student Georgie Burgoyne Morris also gave a Brief Encounters talk on her research.
ongratulations to Abigail Collins on passing her PhD viva! Many thanks to Prof. Libby Gibson from Newcastle University and Prof. Tijmen Euser (Department of Physics) for examining duties.
Abi has been doing some excellent work on the design of solid-state hosts for photon upconverters to improve integration with devices. You can read more about it in her recent publications (below), with more on the way!
Photoactive organic-inorganic hybrid polymer waveguides for optical device technologies. Abigail R. Collins, Thomas J. F. Southern, Guangpeng Lyu, Michael J. Bennison and Rachel C. Evans*, Proc. SPIE 11367, Photosensitive Materials and their Applications, 113670Y (1 April 2020); doi: 10.1117/12.2564510.
Photoactive Materials Group 