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Newsletter AUTUMN / Winter 2010

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Newsletter AUTUMN / Winter 2010 Harvesting sunshine: a solar energy family fun day On Saturday 7th August, the unsuspecting public were challenged to ‘Meet the Photon Scien- tists’ - a solar energy family-friendly scientific event, packed full of fascinating table-top demonstrations and exciting interactive activities, which took place at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. The event was run by a team of 15 PhD students and staff from the PSI, and organized by Darren Graham, Saman- tha Hardman, Andrew Thomas with quite a few helpers! The event was supported by an Institute of Physics Public Engagement Grant to Dr Darren Graham, Dr Andrew Thomas and Prof Wendy Flavell. From L-R back row: Stuart Stubbs, Graham Dinsdale, David Cant, Darren Graham, Ben Spencer, Patrick Lunt, Andrew Thomas (the tall one!), Nic Hylton and Simon Hammersley. Front row: Sam Hardman, Karen Syres, Louise Pogson and Wendy Flavell. Not on photo: Richard Lane, John Fielden. The event addressed the key physics behind harvesting solar energy with activities including the solar concen- trator challenge, demonstrations of the latest solar technologies……and even a giant solar marshmallow cooker! It answered questions like ‘Why is the Sun yellow and the sky blue? – and gave the kids the opportu- nity to have fun with hydrogen-powered model racing cars and make a working solar cell from blackberries (and a bit of titanium dioxide!) Continued on page 7 Newsletter AUTUMN / winter 2010 This newsletter consists of a combination of articles, highlighting both recent grant successes, other awards and events of a professional or personal nature. Items for future newsletters and / or the PSI website should be sent to [email protected]. DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE NEWSLETTER The photon science institute The photon The major news for the PSI has been the decision by achievement by David and Eric, the EPSRC to award the contract for the national and we are delighted they will Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) facility to be joining us in the PSI. We Manchester. This award – to Professors David Colli- should also thank the Dean for son and Eric McInnes (Chemistry) – will be for his support during negotiations around £4.6 M and will support new equipment and with the EPSRC. two post-doctoral fellows for five years. The facility will be housed in the ground floor of the PSI, and The national EPR facility will involve five spectrometers, will occupy most of the area that is currently under- Prof Richard Winpenny utilised. Obtaining this contract has been a major PSI Director Continued on page 2 DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Continued from page 1. progress, but this is advance notice that the ing THz sources for magnetic resonance. summer is likely to be busy. Bruker have many interests beyond mag- operating in the frequency range from 1 to netic resonance spectroscopy, and I hope 95 GHz. As it is a national facility, we will In addition to the direct funding from the this link will be useful for others in the PSI have many external visitors and this will in- research council, the contract has helped us to talk directly to a major instrument volve some other changes within the PSI. establish a strong link to Bruker, who are builder. We will have to use one of the offices for the sole manufacturer of the spectrometers the EPR facility – both for the post-doctoral we are installing. This should benefit fur- One further item: the PSI seems to have researchers funded by the EPSRC but also ther groups in the PSI, because Bruker will been very successful in bids to the Dean’s for the external visitors. We will also have fund an application scientist, to be based in fund for pump priming research. I’m aware to rearrange some of the screening on the the PSI and to work with us to develop new of funding for Mark Dickinson, Darren Gra- ground floor to ensure we designate areas experiments. We have already had interest- ham/Wendy Flavell, Steven Magennis and more clearly. The equipment will probably ing discussions about using PSI lasers for Neil Salmon/Med BenYezzar/Peter Wilkin- move into the PSI in July or August 2011; performing optically detected magnetic son. This is excellent news. If I’ve missed we will keep everyone informed of resonance, and discussions about develop- anyone, please tell me. NEW ELECTRONIC WONDER MATERIAL IS ‘MADE IN MANCHESTER’ In October 2010, the scientific world was lator using simple chemical processes. system. abuzz with the news that two researchers at the University of Manchester had been Using an optical technique known as Raman Although there is a long way to go before awarded this year’s Nobel prize in Physics scattering to study the effects of the proc- we find ‘graphane’ in all our electronic for their discovery of a 21st century wonder essing on the graphene structure, last year, products, the work on graphene is now material – graphene, a single monolayer of in collaboration with Prof Geim’s research growing almost exponentially. Not bad for a hexagonally arranged carbon atoms. group, Matthew Halsall’s group was in- new material ‘made in Manchester’ only 6 volved in studying layers of graphene that years ago! had been exposed to a hydrogen plasma. In the figure right, the left hand side shows the Raman spectrum of normal graphene, Single atomic layers of hexagonally arranged on the right hand side the spectrum after its carbon atoms (artists impression) exposure to hydrogen, the inset is a picture It is in the field of electronics where the ef- of the now transparent graphene layer fects of this discovery are expected to be felt (taken from ref [1]). The Raman spectra on the greatest, and since the first reports were the right shows a more intense D’ line, the made of the isolation of this remarkable ma- presence of this line is related to disorder in 1 terial, Dr Matthew Halsall’s research the crystal caused by the hydrogen atoms Graphene before (left) and after (right) exposure to hydrogen ; Inset: transparent graphene after exposure group, of the School of Electronic and bonding to the surface of the graphene. Electrical Engineering, have contributed to The changes were found to be reversible, [1] “Control of graphene's properties by reversible this work by studying its optical properties. disappearing after high temperature anneal hydrogenation”, R Nair, T M G Mohiuddin, S Graphene has the capacity to revolutionise to remove the hydrogen, and providing V Morozov, D.Celias,P Blake, M P Halsall, the electronics industry. However, if it is to conclusive proof that a new insulating ma- A C Ferrari, D W Boukhalov, M Katsnel- find its way onto everyone’s desktop, a way terial had been produced. Now known as son, A Geim, and K S Novoselov, SCI- needs to be found to convert it into an insul- ‘graphane’, it has the potential to replace ENCE, 323, Issue 5914, pp.610-613 (2009) silicon oxide in a graphene based electronic Researcher of the year 2010 Prof Richard Winpenny has been wide general scientific and public interest, and he was awarded or started grants honoured with a University of Manchester featuring on the BBC News and subsequent totalling £5.4M. This is all the more Distinguished Achievement Award citations. remarkable given that at the time, Richard for Researcher of the Year 2010. was both Associate Dean for Research for In addition, during the year, Richard’s the EPS Faculty and Director of the PSI. In 2009, Richard published research in 22 world-leading research was recognised by papers, two of which immediately attracted the Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award, Putting sunshine in the tank – public engagement in solar fuel generation and whilst, in general, the public are famil- iar with some of the concepts of solar power generation (such as solar panels), to the vast majority of people the concepts behind how we can use the Sun’s energy to generate im- portant fuels or chemical feedstocks are new. The award will be used to address this prob- lem through the development of a high qual- Dr Darren Graham Prof Wendy Flavell ity solar fuel demonstrator for use at out- Pathfinder Fellow reach activities, such as the Manchester and Prof Wendy Flavell has been awarded an York Science Festivals 2011, MOSI Meet EPSRC Impact Pathfinder Award for Year of Chemistry 2011. In addition, a ro- the Scientist events and the International £45,719, to pursue public engagement in bust, self-contained and transportable suite solar fuel generation. The Pathfinder Fellow of ‘solar energy harvesting’ activities will who will undertake this work is Dr Darren be developed, aimed at families with chil- Graham. This award is linked to a previous dren aged 5-14, which will include an ex- £1.9M EPSRC consortium grant award to ploration of the way solar fuels are gener- the Universities of Manchester (PSI), York, ated in photosynthesis. Nottingham and East Anglia, in artificial Finally, a one-day workshop for school photosynthesis (www.solarcap.org.uk). teachers will be organised, which will be Our Sun generates 120,000 TW of power backed up with high quality on-line learning materials. Dr CINZIA CASIRAGHI A warm welcome is University, she was awarded an Ernest Op- respected expert in the field of optical char- extended to Dr penheimer Early Career Research Fellow- acterisation of carbon-based materials and Cinzia Casiraghi ship, to continue research at Cambridge. in particular, of grapheme. Her background who has been ap- Other awards followed: Alexander von spans from growth of amorphous and dia- pointed to a lec- Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2007, and mond-like carbon films to characterisation tureship in Gra- the prestigious Sofja Kovalevskaja Award in and application of carbon nanomaterials, phene Chemistry, 2008.
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