News 2011

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Jennifer Tilley receiving award in Brazil

1st October 2011

Young Person's World Lecture Competition 2011

Congratulations to Jenni Tilley for being awarded 3rd place in the Young Person's World Lecture Competition organised by Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. Jenni was flown out to the finals in Brazil, where she gave her talk titled "Faster, Higher, Stronger: Hero Materials of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games" competing against students from Brazil, Hong Kong, Ireland, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa.

Wang Qishan at Begbroke © Rob Judges

1st September 2011

Chinese Vice Premier Visits Oxford

During his recent visit to the UK for a UK-China financial and economic dialogue, Vice Premier Wang Qishan visited Oxford on the 9th of September. As part of the visit, Vice-Premier Wang chose to visit the Begbroke Science Park, and was shown by Patrick Grant current work in the Department on new nano-technologies for novel energy storage devices.

1st August 2011

Funding For New Spin-Out Oxtexs

Oxtexs Limited, the newest spinout from the University of Oxford, has secured £500,000 of seed funding to develop intelligent hydrogel self-inflating tissue expanders. For the first time, surgeons will be able to accurately and predictably control the direction, the timing, and rate of in vivo expansion. This will significantly reduce the risk of soft tissue damage and associated complications. The level of control makes them ideal for use in delicate anatomical locations, particularly in the treatment of children.

The innovative hydrogel is the result of a unique collaboration between two materials scientists (Jan Czernuszka, Lecturer in Materials at the University of Oxford, and David Bucknall, currently Professor of Materials Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) and two plastic and reconstructive surgeons (Marc C. Swan and Tim Goodacre based at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford). For more information see Oxtexs website news release and Oxford University News.

10th June 2011

Two new ERC Starting Grants

Many congratulations to Valeria Nicolosi and John Morton who have each been awarded a highly competitive ERC grant to expand their work in nano-materials and in quantum spin dynamics respectively. The ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant scheme aims to "fast-track the career development of the very best research talent from across the globe", and we are very pleased to have such rising stars working in the department.
Permitivity manipulation

1st June 2011

Permitivity manipulation Meta-materials for engineering systems

A consorium of 4 UK universities has been awarded a £5m grant by EPSRC to explore the practical opportunities offered by the relatively new field of spatial transformation of electromagnetic waves. Working with the universities of Queen Mary London, Exeter and St Andrews, a team in the department led by Patrick Grant and Chris Grovenor will concentrate on developing manufacturing processes for materials that offer novel properties at microwave freqencies by the careful manipulation in 3D of dielectric and magnetic performance. Also see news article "Invisibility cloak to be unveiled with new research" and QUEST project announcement.
Model of nanosheet cluster Artistic quantum entanglement

10th February 2011

Model of nanosheet cluster Artistic quantum entanglement Artistic quantum entanglement Quantum properties and Nanomaterials Publications

Demonstrating the excellence of research on quantum properties and nanomaterials in the department, papers by Valeria Nicolosi, John Morton, Eric Gauger and Simon Benjamin and coworkers have all been published recently in Science, Nature and Physical Review Letters. We congratulate especially graduate student Stephanie Simmons on the very significant achievement of a first author Nature paper.

Marshall Stoneham ©IOP

1st February 2011

Marshall Stoneham

The theoretical condensed-matter physicist Marshall Stoneham died on Friday 18th February at the age of 70. Stoneham, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, spent much of his career studying the effects of defects in solids and published several books on the topic. Since 2005 he has been an Academic Visitor in the Department of Materials, but his collaboration with colleagues goes back much longer. His most recent paper from Oxford is on a new model for magnetoreception, written with Erik Gauger, Kyriakos Porfyrakis, Simon Benjamin and Brendon Lovett.

Please refer to the link below for further details of Professor Stoneham's life and achievements:http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45160