My research uses materials chemistry to design functional soft materials (e.g. polymers, surfactants, colloids/nanoparticles, organic-inorganic hybrids) which absorb, produce or respond to light. Such materials are the basis of many cutting-edge technologies, including light-emitting displays, solar cells, optical sensors and bioelectronic devices. I am particularly interested in developing methods to control the structural organisation of photoactive materials, from the nano- to the macroscale, since this controls many of their fundamental properties, for example, photoluminescence and charge transport. My research is highly interdisciplinary and we use a range of spectroscopy, scattering (light/neutrons/X-rays) and microscopy techniques to unravel structure-property relationships in a variety of systems.
