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Newsletter Summer / Autumn 2011

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Newsletter Summer / Autumn 2011 Darren graham Congratulations to Dr Darren Graham who was nics?’ recently awarded the very prestigious EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship, which he will hold in the Darren will be col- PSI for the next five years. laborating with Nigel Scrutton and Steve The fellowship entitled, ‘Terahertz electron para- Rigby (MIB), David magnetic resonance: a window on biological exploi- Collison and Eric tation of quantum mechanics’, will focus on con- McInnes (EPSRC EPR structing a novel electron paramagnetic resonance facility), Hiroyuki (EPR) spectrometer operating in the terahertz spec- Nojiri (Tohoku Uni- tral range. By utilising the sub-picoseconds capabili- versity), as well as ties of ultrafast laser spectroscopy, this new instru- instrument manufac- ment will enable Darren to address a fundamental turers, Spectra- question in enzyme catalysis, ‘Have biological cata- Physics Lasers and lysts (enzymes) evolved to exploit quantum mecha- Bruker. Dr Darren Graham Newsletter sUMMER / autumn 2011 This newsletter consists of a combination of articles, highlighting both recent grant successes and those of a personal nature. Items for future newsletters and/or the PSI website should be sent to [email protected]. CONTROLLED SYNTHESIS OF TUNED BANDGAP NANODIMENSIONAL ALLOYS Research by members of the PSI aimed at optimizing composition. An important task was to prove that the light-harvesting properties of chalcogenide quan- the particles have a uniform composition. This was tum dots has been published in Journal of the American achieved using energy-filtered transmission electron Chemical Society, widely regarded as the most prestig- microscopy in the Manchester Materials Science ious journal in Chemistry. Centre and by PSI members using X-ray photoelec- tron spectroscopy at the SuperESCA beamline at the The work by Prof Paul O’Brien, Dr Mohammad ELETTRA synchrotron in Trieste. PSI members also Afzaal, Dr Javeed Akhtar, Dr David Binks, contributed to demonstrating the crucial direct cor- Prof Wendy Flavell, Dr Darren Graham and relation between composition and band gap. Dr Samantha Hardman was carried out in col- laboration with partners in the Manchester Materials Published in Journal of the American Chemical Soci- Science Centre and international collaborators in ety, 133, 5602 (2011) - see the following link: Italy, Poland and Saudi Arabia. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ja200750s Small clusters of semiconducting material or ‘quantum dots’ offer great potential as the light- harvesting elements in next generation solar cells— in particular because under certain conditions it is possible to generate more than one set of current NEWSLETTER The photon science institute The photon carriers for every photon absorbed—a phenomenon known as ‘multiple exciton generation’ or MEG. However, it can prove difficult to synthesise dots with uniform and reproducible composition. Prof O’Brien and his group have been able to find a way to produce truly alloyed PbSxSe1-x nanoparticles of uniform composition. As the band gap of the mate- PbSxSe1-x ’quantum dots’, imaged using energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy. The bright colours show rial varies with composition, this presents the tanta- regions with high selenium content. Each quantum dot is lizing prospect of being able to tune the energy of the around 5 nanometres across—about 1/100,000th of a light absorbed by the dot by simply adjusting the human hair. Credit: Manchester Materials Science Centre, School of Materials, The University of Manchester. Promotions Congratulations to Matthew Halsall and Krikor Ozanyan of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, who have been promoted to the position of chair as of 1st August 2011. Congratulations are also due to Dr Thomas Waigh on his promotion to the position of Senior Lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy. Matthew P Halsall Krikor B Ozanyan Thomas A Waigh Professor of Photonics Professor of Photonic Sensors and Systems Senior Lecturer in Biological Physics Philip dawson CINZIA CASIRAGHI Professor Phil Dawson has been awarded an EPSRC grant for £497,000, for the Dr Cinzia study of semi-polar and non-polar nitride Casiraghi and based structures for opto-electronic device her collaborators, applications. Profs Novoselov and O’Brien, These new types of nitride quantum well have been structures could well lead to the develop- awarded a Royal ment of LEDs capable of emitting linearly Society ‘seed polarised light as well as the elimination of Dr Cinzia Casiraghi corn’ grant for the effects of the internal electric fields that £15K to study "Synthesis and characterization are so problematic in conventional polar of molybdenum and tungsten dichalcogenide quantum well structures. analogues of graphene". Inorganic photophysics and photochemistry: DD13—call for abstracts—DEADLINE 9TH OCTOBER 2011 http://mxm.mxmfb.com/rsps/ct/c/1127/r/20807/l/465097 This is a call for abstracts for the conference and biology — but all with a shared interest Speakers include the following: on Inorganic Photophysics and Photochemis- in the use of light. Whilst the main focus of try - Fundamentals and Applications : Dal- the meeting will be on inorganic com- • Prof Majed Chergui, Ecole Polytechnique ton Discussion 13 will take place from 10- pounds and materials the meeting will be Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland 12 September 2012 at the University of broadly-based to reflect the interdiscipli- • Prof Luisa De Cola, Westfälische Wil- Sheffield, UK nary nature of the field, and contributions helms-Universität Münster, Germany from all photophysics-based disciplines will The call for abstracts deadline is 9th be considered. • Prof Richard Eisenberg, University of October 2011. Abstracts may be submitted Rochester, USA via the above link. As the efficient use of light as a renewable energy source is becoming paramount this • Prof Peter Ford, University of California, The fields of photophysics and photochemis- Discussion will focus on the following USA try of metal complexes, and their associated themes: spectroscopic methodology, have never • Prof Chantal Daniel, Université Stras- been more topical. • Solar energy bourg, France Inorganic Photophysics and Chemistry - • Energy and electron transfer • Prof Leif Hammarström, Uppsala Univer- Fundamentals and Applications: DD13 aims sitet, Sweden to bring together researchers from a wide • Applications of strongly emissive com- range of disciplines — from theory and ul- plexes • Prof Craig Hill, Emory University, USA trafast spectroscopy to medicinal chemistry • Bond breaking and isomerisation • Prof David Parker, Durham University Qinetiq developments Driven by the need for all weather flying, The PSI has recently received a 35GHz has come to the University for use in educa- remote sensing environmental monitoring quasi-optical security screening portal tion. It generates good quality images and and security screening of personnel, milli- (photo below), which uses mechanical scan- could be used by students in image process- metre-wave imaging technology has been ning, a focusing mirror, a 64-receiver ele- ing and sensor engineering projects. developed by QinetiQ. They are essentially ment focal plane array and an illumination video cameras working in the microwave chamber to generate video rate imagery of The system represents several years of and millimetre wave band and exploit the persons. In maturity it constitutes a Tech- QinetiQ internally funded development; atmospheric properties that over path nology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 system and there were six precursors to this system lengths of hundreds of meters, fog, cloud, was used to demonstrate the capabilities of which were trialled and sold to customers haze and dust storms are largely transparent, millimetre waves for security screening. Six for evaluation. The system now in the Uni- but over much longer paths they provide in- years ago it represented the state-of-the-art versity represents the final and most sophis- formation about the weather and atmos- in millimetre wave security screening tech- ticated system of the series. The build cost pheric constituents. Security screening of nology but was deemed by business leaders of a single system was ~£400K and when personnel is enabled by the semi-transparent as being too large for deployment as an air- the system is assembled it is 2m wide × 2m nature of clothing and packaging materials. port security screening system; hence, it high × 4m long. The 35GHz quasi-optical security screening portal showing the illumination chamber on the left hand side and the back of the imager on the right hand side. Photo credit: QuinetiQ Ltd. Dr Neil Salmon, a aperture synthesis imager uses a 32- integrated into existing building infrastruc- QinetiQ Fellow, receiver element aperture array, a 300MHz tures for security screening, into aircraft holds a Royal Soci- bandwidth digital cross-correlator and algo- skins for all-weather flying. ety Industry Fel- rithms running in a standard PC, to gener- lowship to work in ate video imagery in the near and far-field. This system generated its first images in the PSI, and has It represents the current state-of-the-art in April of this year, to the delight of Technol- been responsible for next generation millimetre-wave imagers ogy Strategy Board and European Space developing a and a possible future for imaging in this Agency sponsors. The system is unique and Dr Neil Salmon 22GHz millimetre band, as it has the potential to deliver bet- is generating exciting new data, which is wave imaging sys- ter quality images (namely three- currently being evaluated so that a next tem from a technique initially pioneered for dimensional in the near-field) and be made generation TRL 5 system can be designed radio astronomy into one with commercial much more compact. As the technology and built for existing and new customers in and research applications in other areas. could ultimately be integrated into a 2cm the security and aerospace industries. thick printed circuit substrate, it could be The small 22GHz TRL 4 proof-of-principle Continued on page 4 QINETIQ developments continued Other developments achieved by the Royal term weather forecasting (now-casting).
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