We were delighted to welcome some very special visitors to the lab recently: the parents of our DPhil student, Nick Parak.

It was a real pleasure that Nick could show them around and give them a glimpse into his day-to-day life in the group: from the complexities of sol-gel synthesis to the finer details of experimental problem-solving. For many families, the world of research can feel a little abstract, so having the opportunity to see where the work actually happens, lab coats and all, makes it that bit more tangible.

Research degrees are demanding, exciting, and often all-consuming journeys. Moments like these remind us that behind every experiment and every dataset is a network of support that makes it all possible. We’re always happy when family members can visit and see firsthand the environment, dedication, and enthusiasm that define our group.

Thank you for visiting and for sharing in the science!

In celebration of International Women’s Day on 8 March 2026, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Materials journals have put together special collections showcasing excellent work led by women researchers and published across the journals in 2025.

We are delighted that Dr Aysha Riaz’ work on The influence of stabiliser concentration on the formation of In₂O₃ thin films has been featured as part of the Journal of Materials Chemistry C special collection. You can read the work led by Aysha here.

Charlotte André has spent the last four months with us for an internship, forming part of her degree at the Université Paris-Saclay, France. Charlotte has been working on sol-gel deposition routes for post-transition metal oxide thin films, understanding the role dopants play in their electronic structure and film morphology. Charlotte has had an incredibly productive time with us, making well over a hundred films and successfully optimising both dip- and spin-coating routines. In parallel, she had her first experience at a synchrotron, joining an experiment at beamline I09 at Diamond Light Source, and got involved in two collaborations, analysing HAXPES data of oxide materials. We wish Charlotte all the best for the remainder of her degree and for her future plans to become a Chemistry teacher!

Congratulations are in order to Dr Andrey Ten for successfully defending and submitting his PhD at the University of Cambridge. Andrey worked with Prof Emilie Ringe in the Optical Nanomaterial Group. Andrey’s PhD thesis focused on the synthesis, characterisation, and application of magnesium nanoplasmonics and you can find his thesis here.

We had the privilege of working with Andrey during his MSc in Chemical Research at UCL in 2020/21 and wish him well for all his future endeavors!

Congratulations to Aysha who has been selected as one of the NuNano 2025 Women in AFM! Aysha has used AFM throughout her PhD to study the surface morphology and film uniformity of her metal oxide thin films which she makes using sol-gel synthesis. She has been able to link changes in solution chemistry with film properties, including those characterised by AFM. You can read some of her recent work here. Aysha is currently undertaking a Nuffield Foundation Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) Fellowship whilst also finalising her PhD thesis.

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).