A formal announcement was made this morning by the Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts, concerning funding of centres for doctoral training (CDTs).
Bristol performed very well, and managed to secure funding for 7 CDTs, while also partner and closely involved in a further 4 CDTs. Of particular interest was the successful funding bid for the BCFN, where Charl was closely involved in both the writing and the interview stages of the bid!
Well done Bristol!
And finally, just to show that James (and Charl) were really working in China, here a photo of them both at James’ poster.
A large group from the Bristol Centre for Functional Nanomaterials, including James (joint PhD student with Heinrich Hoerber) and Charl are currently in Beijing, China. They participated in a joint symposium on Tuesday with the CAS National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology on Monday (see the photo below), and are currently attending the ChinaNANO’13 conference.
On Monday they will visit our collaborators at the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University for the “1st Tsinghua-Bristol Joint Nanoscience Symposium”
Chinwe’s paper (with James, Ben and Patrice, our collaborator from Grenoble) on tuning conductivity and structure of tetra(aniline)-based triblock structures appeared online on the Journal of Materials Chemistry C’s website!
In this paper we reported on our investigations into the aggregation behaviour and optoelectronic properties of these π-conjugated rod–coil–rod triblock materials. Well done!
A paper by Chinwe on the assembly and control of TANI triblock structures, and two order-of-magnitude tuning of conductivity was just accepted for publication in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C! This paper further strengthens the cooperation the FRG has with Dr Patrice Rannou (Grenoble), who is one of the co-authors. More details to follow soon, but in the meantime – well done to all involved!
Angel has been part of the Science Communication (SciComm) workshop held at Cumberland Lodge, in the Great Windsor Park. This course was specifically oriented towards dealing with the media – journalism, television and radio. The course involved plenty of practical work, including time in a BBC radio recording studio in Central London.
Ben’s review entitled “Opportunities in high-speed atomic force microscopy” was published online in Small earlier this week! Congrats Ben!
Charl attended the University of Bristol‘s first graduation ceremony in China on Saturday, held in ChinaWorld Hotel in Beijing. There were more than 200 students who received their degrees, including Li Ye, one of the first BCFN Masters’ students!
It was wonderful to share this experience with him – congratulations Li! See also the UoB’s Weibo pages for more photos and further details (in Chinese!).
Ben’s review of HSAFM (with Loren Picco and Merv Miles, Ben’s second supervisor, from the Nanophysics and Soft Matter group in the School of Physics) has been accepted for publication in Small. More to follow soon! Congratulations!
Ben has just returned from visiting Prof. Gregory Salamo and Dr. Michael Hawkridge at the Arkansas Nano-Bio Materials Characterization Facility, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, USA.
He made use of their X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) equipment, which provided information about the atomic composition of his films with approx 10 µm resolution (X-Y) and sub-10nm resolution (Z). The XPS experiments allowed him to characterise any chemical changes that may take place in his film to result in the changes in conductivity observed.
Ben travelled to the US with Dr. Loren Picco, a colleague in the Nanophysics group in Bristol, and the trip was funded by an EPSRC “Building Global Engagements” grant. Loren specialises in high-speed AFM (HSAFM) and was visiting Arkansas to help them set up a high-speed AFM to be based in the Nano-Bio Materials Characterization Facility
Faul Research Group 