The joint publication with Becky and Alex as the two joint first authors has just appeared in the latest issue of Cryst Eng Comm! This joint efforts is also featured on the front cover of the journal! Well done!
Ben (Brown)’s paper on the development of a conductive-AFM redox-writing (cAROW) technique to address thin films of oligo(aniline) has just appeared online in Small!
Please note that this paper is open access, and available for download without any charge.
A good friend and colleague from the Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Prof Dongsheng Liu, is visiting the FRG. Dongsheng spent two days interacting with members of the FRG and talking to other colleagues in the BCFN and the School of Chemistry.
He also gave a overview of some of the new developments in his laboratories! Great to have Dongsheng here in Bristol! Charl and colleagues from the BCFN will see Dongsheng (and colleagues) in September in Beijing for ChinaNano 2015.
As the final visit of his trip to Japan, Charl spent a very enjoyable day at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, just outside Nara. He was hosted by Prof Kawai and colleagues from the Laboratory for Photonic Molecular Science. Charl had a number of very interesting discussions about their exciting science, and potential future interactions before and after his talk in the afternoon.
Prof Kawai and colleagues (professors Nakashima, Nonoguchi and Yuasa) treated Charl to an exquisite meal at a restaurant that specialises in Japanese mushroom delicacies!
Charl spent a day at Kansai University, kindly hosted by Prof Fumio Sanda at the Polymer Design and Creation Laboratories. Except for interesting discussions with faculty members, Charl also spent the afternoon with Prof Sanda’s students, where they presented their latest (and very exciting) results! Charl ended the afternoon by giving a talk (before a delicious dinner in downtown Osaka!).
Charl is currently in Japan, visiting Prof Kazuo Akagi (in Kyoto, and former PhD supervisor of Kazu in the FRG) to discuss future Bristol-Kyoto interactions. The visit so far has been very productive, including meeting Dr Reiko Oda (from Bordeaux), who gave a fascinating talk on chirality in amphiphilic systems.
The day of interactions was celebrated … with Japanese green-tea-containing beer, whilst learning about the famous Kyoto Gion Festival.
Charl will still be visiting Prof Fumio Sanda (Kansai University) and Prof Tsuyoshi Kawai (Nara Institute of Science and Technology) before returning the Bristol at the end of the week.
The inspiration of Dicker’s research project, sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust, is the sun-tracking movements of the Cornish Mallow.
Dicker, a joint PhD student with Prof Paul Weaver and colleagues from ACCIS, recently posted this Youtube time-lapse video of his prized Cornish Mallow’s laboratory activity!
Charl is currently in Singapore at the ICMAT2015 meeting. Great meeting, with the chance to see presentations from Nicola Pinna (now in Berlin, former colleague from the MPI in Golm), Uwe Bunz (Heidelberg), Stefan Kaskel (Dresden), Dorota Koziej (ETH Zurich, working with former MPI colleague Markus Niederberger), and former FRG member, Tierui Zhang (Beijing).
A paper by (Dr) Ben Brown, entitled “Reversible Conductive-AFM Patterning of Organic Semiconductors” was accepted by Small! The study outlines a conductive-AFM redox-writing (cAROW) technique, and show that it is possible to locally, and reversibly, pattern conducting and non-conducting features on the surface of oligo(aniline)s.
This project was done in close collaboration with Dr Loren Picco and Prof Mervyn Miles FRS, from the Nanophysics and Soft Matter group in School of Physics. It is obvious from the image that Ben (now working for GE in Bristol) was sponsored by the BCFN!
Esther and Ben are at the ESRF in Grenoble, doing some scattering experiments with former FRG member Dr Tom Dane (from beam line ID13), and long-standing collaborator and friend Dr Patrice Rannou.
Here an (almost) action shot at the beam line taken by Ben, with Tom, Esther, Patrice and Meera (postdoc in Patrice’s group).
Faul Research Group 