Congratulations to Guanpeng Lyu, Thomas Southern and Bethan L. Charles for their work on the paper entitled “Aggregation-induced emission from silole-based luminophores embedded in organic–inorganic hybrid host” which has just been accepted for publication in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C. 

This paper reports the incorporation of silole-based luminophores, which exhibit aggregation-induced emission (AIE) behaviour into a photoactive organic-inorganic hybrid host, named ureasils. To achieve this, two sample series with varying doping concentrations were prepared, based on either the parent silole AIEgen, named DMTPS or the silylated analogue DMTPS-Sil, which were physically doped or covalently grafted, respectively, to the ureasil host via a sol-gel synthetic process. Our results, including steady-state and photoluminescence characterisation, as well as confocal microscopy, revealed that covalent grafting led to reduced scattering loss, improved chemical stability and enhanced PLQY (up to ca. 40%). Moreover, the excitation energy transfer was shown to occur from the optically active ureasil host to the embedded DMTPS-Sil with an efficiency of almost 70%. This study highlights the potential for designing complex photoluminescent hybrid polymers exhibiting an enhanced AIE response for solid-state optical applications.

We would also like to thank our collaborators, Maxime Roger, Philippe Gerbier and Sébastien Clément from University of Montpellier in France, for their help in the synthesis and structural characterisation of the AIE molecules.

“Aggregation-induced emission from silole-based lumophores embedded in organic–inorganic hybrid host” G. Lyu, T. J. F. Southern, B. L. Charles, M. Roger, P. Gerbier, S. Clément and R. C. Evans, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2021, DOI: 10.1039/d1tc02794h.

Takashi joins the group from Cambridge NanoDTC where his PhD research focused on photocatalytic reactions in optofluidic micro reactors. His work in the PAM Group will involve luminescent waveguide encoded lattices (LWELs).

Congratulations to 3rd year PhD student Kieran Richards, who was awarded the A&B Brief Encounters prize (jointly with Liam Ives from the Kar-Narayan group) for his 3 minute talk at the Armourer and Brasiers Forum on the 23rd June 2021. Well done Kieran!

Congratulations to first year PhD student Bea Jones on picking up a prize for her talk at the virtual Colloids 2021 meeting. What great achievement for your first conference talk! Bea is jointly funded by EPSRC and Diamond Light Source and will be heading to DLS in the Autumn for the next stage of her PhD on the B21 beam line.

Congratulations to members of the group who participated in the RSC’s Materials Chemistry conference, which was unfortunately held online instead of Dublin due to the C-19 pandemic.

Nell-Tunstall Garcia, Abi Collins and Bethan Charles all presented posters on their research. Huge congratulations to Nell who won a poster prize in the Materials for Energy session (see snap below) at her very first conference!

Well done to Kieran who delivered another excellent presentation with slides that are the envy of all audience members!

Congratulations to Kieran for giving a series of well-received talks throughout June and July, including:

• IOP – Designed Assembly of Colloids at Interfaces (14th – 6th June)

• University of Cambridge (MSM) – Armourer and Brasiers Forum (23rd June)

• RSC – 15th International Conference on Materials Chemistry (12th – 15th July)

The talks covered his work on the design of light-responsive Pickering emulsions and were given to a range of audiences including industry professionals, peers in the same academic field, and specialists in the area of colloidal science.

Congratulations to Abi Collins, Michael Bennison, Bolong Zhang and Rachel Evans whose paper has been published in Macromolecules. The perspective is entitled “Organic Polymer Hosts for Triplet–Triplet Annihilation Upconversion Systems”.

The impressive artwork for the perspective featured on the front cover of the issue was made by our own Kieran Richards.

In this perspective the authors discuss the use of organic polymer hosts for triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion for solar energy and many other applications. They explore the choice of host system (which often compromises contradicting factors such as high molecular mobility, low oxygen diffusion, and high material stability) and suggest future research directions (including homopolymer blends and copolymers, organic-inorganic hybrid hosts and controlling chromophore positioning).

This work was supported by the European Research Council.

Organic Polymer Hosts for Triplet–Triplet Annihilation Upconversion Systems, Michael J. Bennison, Abigail R. Collins, Bolong Zhang, and Rachel C. Evans, Macromolecules, 2021, 54, 12, 5287–5303.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.1c00133

Congratulations to Helen Tunstall-Garcia whose first paper co-authored with Bethan Charles and Rachel Evans has been published in Advanced Photonics Research. Their review is entitled “The Role of Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes in Optical Applications”.

In this review the authors examine the use of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) for photonic applications, such as sensing, bioimaging, and optoelectronic devices. They describe the benefits of POSS (including acting as a passivating agent and preventing lumophore aggregation) and explore potential areas for future development (including in LEDs and as templating molecules for upconversion applications).

The Role of Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes in Optical Applications, Helen Tunstall-Garcia, Bethan L. Charles, Rachel C. Evans, Advanced Photonics Research 2021, https://doi.org/10.1002/adpr.202000196

We are delighted to announce that Bethan has recently been invited to become a senior member at Hughes Hall, Cambridge, where she will be taking up the role of Research Associate within the college.

Bethan is also joint winner, with Jeremie Asselin, of this year’s Armourers and Brasiers Company post-doctoral prize within the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. Many congratulations Bethan!

New paper out in Energy and Environmental Science in collaboration with Michael Debije (Eindhoven) and Gianmarco Griffini (Milan). We make the case for treating luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) as optical devices and outline experimental protocols for the standardisation of LSC characterisation to enable advancement of the field. Link