Welcome to The Photon Science Institute

• PSI Spring Newsletter

You now can read this online here.

• New PSI Graphene Research in Science journal

PSI member Cinzia Casiraghi has been working along with fellow researchers from the University of Manchester and the National University of Singapore to show how have shown how building multi-layered heterostructures in a three-dimensional stack can produce an exciting physical phenomenon exploring new electronic devices.

The breakthrough, published in Science, could lead to electric energy that runs entire buildings generated by sunlight absorbed by its exposed walls; the energy can be used at will to change the transparency and reflectivity of fixtures and windows depending on environmental conditions, such as temperature and brightness.

Read the entire article...

• Congratulations to Paul O'Brien FRS and Bob Young FRS

We are delighted that two strong supporters of the PSI have been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Prof Bob Young FRS is a world-leader in studies of polymers and composites, particularly in the use of Raman spectroscopy to study deformation mechanics at the molecular level. Bob was also the acting Director of the PSI when the institute was first founded. Prof Paul O'Brien FRS is a world-leader in inorganic materials chemistry, particularly in the synthesis of quantum dots and precursors for CVD applications. His recent work involves a strong interaction with the PSI, particularly with Dave Binks and Wendy Flavell to study the photophysics of semi-conductor quantum dots.

Many congratulations to POB and Bob! Two outstanding new Fellows of the world's oldest scientific academy.

• Two University Institutes secure €3.4million to train future generation of investigators

The Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) and Photon Science Institute (PSI) have secured a Marie Curie training network grant worth €3.4 million to train the future generation of investigators.  The four year grant entitled “MAGnetic Innovation in Catalysis”, known as the MAGIC Innovative Doctoral Programme,  will see the MIB and PSI host 12 early stage researchers who will be appointed to three-year PhD training programmes.  The University of Manchester will partner with six Universities (Tokyo, Freiburg, Lund, Joseph Fourier in France, Edinburgh and Copenhagen) and five companies (AZ, Bruker, TGK, Conformetrix, and SarOMICS). Each early stage researcher will be closely linked to the international and industrial partners who will be actively involved in their research projects. 


Professor Nigel Scrutton, Director of MIB, said:  "The concept of team-based activity is well founded across research groups in MIB and PSI and will enrich the training experience by bringing multiple skills embedded in these teams to MAGIC programmes.  Our aim is to train the future generation of leading investigators of biological catalysis/enzymology in developing new enabling technologies that can advance physical understanding of catalysis and mechanism.  These collaborative research projects will explore the mechanistic details of enzyme systems by adopting innovative, versatile and unique experimental techniques to probe the contributions of motions across multiple spatial and temporal timescales and quantum chemical effects.  In turn, these novel methods will transform current experimental capabilities and will be applied to a range of important biological catalysts to probe the mechanistic importance of coupled motions and quantum physico-chemical effects.”


It is expected that this grant will commence in February 2014. 

 

• Welcome Alex Jones

The PSI has a new Research Fellow. Learn more here.

• New iCase Sponsorships

Two EPSRC Industrial Case (iCase) sponsorships from National Grid have been obtained by Med Benyezzar, Patricia, Scully, Krikor Ozanyan, and Krishna Persaud. Click on the title link to read more.