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22nd April 2013
Three academic appointments
The Materials Department is delighted to welcome 3 new members of academic staff. Professor Roger Reed has joined us from Birmingham University as a joint appointment with Engineering Science. His research field is alloys for extreme environments. Dr Jamie Warner (Oxford) and Dr Harish Bhaskaran (Exeter) are new permanent Research Lecturers. Jamie leads a group working on synthetic carbon nanomaterials, including graphene, for opto-electronic applications. Harish is an expert in manufacturing and applications of nanoscale devices, particularly in the development of energy efficient nanoscale manufacturing and nano-electromechanical systems. We are looking forward to working closely with all 3 of them.
9th April 2013
Manufacturing the future: endohedral fullerenes, small molecules, big challenges
Dr Kyriakos Porfyrakis has been awarded an EPSRC Fellowship to explore the manufacturing capacity and chemical functionalization of endohedral fullerenes. The grant, worth £1.5M over 5 years, will allow Kyriakos to develop manufacturing methods for large-scale production of a variety of endohedral fullerenes. These molecules have attractive properties for a number of applications including energy harvesting, medical imaging and nanoelectronics. This project will develop the methodologies for gram-scale synthesis of nanomaterials and will synthesise molecules that are designed for specific applications. The research will involve collaboration with Prof. Hisanori Shinohara at Nagoya University and with Prof. Luis Echegoyen at The University of Texas (El Paso) who are both experts in endohedral fullerenes. The work will also involve collaborating with industry for commercial exploitation of the materials made in the laboratory.
19th March 2013
Comic relief bake-off at Begbroke
The first annual international Comic Relief Bake-off at Begbroke on Friday was a great success, the winners were:
1st Vitaliy Babenko (Materials)
2nd Phil Anderson (Engineering)
3rd Assia Kasdi (Materials)
£100.65 was raised for Comic Relief
Thanks to all those who attended and a special thanks to Natasha and Chris for organizing and making the attached poster with some photos from the day.
8th March 2013
Interview about nuclear materials research in Oxford
James Marrow (James Martin Chair in Energy Materials) has been interviewed by James Martin (benefactor of the Oxford Martin School) on the nuclear materials research in Oxford, and its contribution towards solving the global energy challenges of the 21st Century. Some of this work is supported by the Oxford Martin School programme in Nuclear and Energy Materials. The discussion focused on questions that included: Can nuclear power ever be completely safe? Is nuclear power the best solution for world energy needs? and how can improved materials contribute to the safety of nuclear power stations? Some of these points are captured in a pair of podcasts, available from the Oxford Martin School website.
13th February 2013
Research into the next generation of mobile devices
The Departments of Engineering Science and Materials have been awarded a three year research contract worth approximately US$1.5m over three years by Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) to open a new paradigm of flexible energy storage and generation systems.
Professor Jong Min Kim, Principal Investigator of the project, will lead the flexible energy generation, device design, integration and testing. Professor Kim said: “This research will be based on a new concept of flexible energy generation/storage for the next generation of mobile devices”.
Professor Patrick Grant will lead the research on the manufacture and characterisation of flexible energy storage, materials and sub-systems using recent developments in carbon and other nano-materials.
The research will also involve close collaboration with Professor Han Soo Kim at Hanyang University in South Korea, who is an expert in energy storage devices. The final stages of the research will involve translating the work to collaborating industries.
28th January 2013
EU Funding for GRAPHENE announced
Funding for the 1 billion Euro EU FET Flagship project GRAPHENE has just been announced. Feliciano Giustino will be contributing to this enormous project in the area of the computational modelling of photovoltaic materials and devices based on graphene.
18th January 2013
Hirsch Lecture 2013 podcast
On 18th January 2013 Mark Miodownik, Professor of Materials and Society at University College London, gave the Hirsch Lecture 2013 entitled "Strange Materials".
The lecture is available via the podcasts web site:
http://www.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/department-materials
Alternatively it can be accessed via the Oxford on iTunesU site:
The video podcast series is in here:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/itunes-u/department-of-materials/id425665707
The audio podcast series is here:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/itunes-u/department-of-materials/id425666524
Note Prof Miodownik will be giving another talk on "Strange Material" on 22nd February at the Royal Institution.
20th December 2012
3rd prize in EUREC Awards 2012
Congratulations to Sabina Caneva who was awarded 3rd prize in the EUREC Awards 2012 for the best undergraduate student project in the field of renewable energies.
View video promoting EUREC Masters Programme including the prize giving (see 2.49sec).
10th December 2012
Professor John Hunt, FRS
It is with great sadness that the department announces the death of one of our most respected and eminent colleagues. John Hunt joined the department in 1966, and was appointed to a readership in 1990 and a professorship in 1996, finally retiring in 2002. He contributed enormously to teaching and research in the department, and was internationally recognised for his work on solidification. John was also the tutor in St Edmund Hall from 1968, where he helped train generations of Materials Scientists.
The department sends its deepest sympathies to Ann and all his family.
26th November 2012
ICT Pioneers
Philip Dolan (4th year DPhil) was one of 12 finalists in the EPSRC ICT Pioneers competition with his project "Ultra-small open access microcavities for enhancement of the the light-matter interaction".
Find out more now - view cool flash animation!
