Yujiang successfully defended his PhD thesis on the 5th of February – congratulations!

Yujiang’s thesis explored how wet synthesis parameters could be tuned to obtain copper oxide nanostructures of varying characteristics and understand how these relate to their performance in non-enzymatic glucose sensors. He was able to show that changes as little as a few degrees Celsius in the synthesis temperature can dramatically change the nanostructure morphology and consequently the sensing properties.

To date, Yujiang has published one paper based on his PhD work, which you can read here, with more in the pipeline. His examiners were Dr John Hardy from the University of Lancaster and Prof Gopinathan Sankar at UCL – a big thank you to both of them! Throughout his PhD Yujiang has also contributed to collaborations inside and outside of the group resulting in four co-authored papers.

We are fortunate enough that Yujiang is spending a little more time with us now in Oxford before starting a job later this year. We are excited to follow his career and so delighted we could be part of it!

This year the group hosted three Chemistry undergraduate final year students for their research project: Emila Duka, Shiyang (Ann) Lu, and Obina Uba. Emila and Obina worked on doped indium oxide thin films together with Aysha and Ann worked on core and valence spectroscopy of OLED materials from experiment and theory co-supervised by Dr Laura Ratcliff from the University of Bristol. Prajna supported with her XPS and XRD expertise.

Emila, Ann and Obina became integral members of the group and we were happy to celebrate their success in both producing high quality theses (see physical blue copy in images below) and engaging final research presentations (see “live” images below).

As part of Harwell XPS‘ series celebrating women in surface science, Prajna Bhatt was interviewed about her experiences in research and career. She’s absolutely brilliant and reflects in a very honest and clear way about how she feels about her work environment and the wider research field. Check out the video below!

We have a PhD project available through the open DTP studentships on gallium oxide thin films for electronic devices. You can find the project description here (the project ID is 2228cd1383). The project will involve the development of a solution-based, energy-efficient manufacturing process for Ga₂O3-based materials, the interfacing of Ga₂O₃ with varying metallisation schemes to create device-relevant heterostructures, and the use of advanced X-ray spectroscopy techniques to explore the formed interfaces.

This project is part of the competitive DTP studentship call at UCL. Depending on the qualifications of the applicants, this project may not necessarily lead to a studentship. You can find all the information about the application process here.

Get in touch with Anna, if you are interested and/or have any questions.