Awards for AMBER Early career researchers

18 December 2018

Congratulations to all of our PhD and Post-docs who received awards this year. Highlighted for 2018 are: Dr Chris Hobbs from team Nicolosi and Drs Sahar Alialy and Hugh Manning from team Boland.

Chris received the MSA Student Scholar Award at the Microscopy & Microanalysis, Baltimore,Maryland, USA and The New Researcher Award at the 19th International Microscopy Congress, Sydney, Australia for his work on Layered double hydroxides (LDHs). LDHs are a member of the two-dimensional nanomaterial category, and are considered as versatile materials due to broad applications in medicine, catalysis and flame retardants. They have also been used as precursor materials for catalytic applications where the calcination of the precursor layered materials results in the generation of catalytically active materials, whereby they have applications in photocatalysis, hydrogen production and magnetic materials. Chris’s work involved conducting previously unobserved detailed descriptions and observation of the nanoscale thermal evolution mechanisms of these materials, using in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterization of Ni-Fe LDHs, revealing the nanoscale mechanisms involved with the thermal evolution of these versatile nanomaterials.Speaking about his New Researcher Award Chris notes: “It was a true pleasure to present my work at IMC19 in Sydney this year. This also gave me great exposure to some of the ground breaking research at the forefront of materials science on a world wide scale. As well as having made great connections with many international researchers, I also made great friends across the world from my experiences at IMC19. It was a great honour to receive the New Researcher Award, a fantastic recognition of my PhD Research over the last 4 years in the Nicolosi group.”

Dr. Sahar Alialy received the Outstanding Abstract Award at the Applied Nanotechnology and Nanoscience International Conference (ANNIC) 2018, Berlin, Germany for her invited talk “Resistive Switching and Charge Conduction Mechanisms in Single Nanowire Au-Ti/TiO2/Ti-Au RRAM Devices”. In her work on the nature and direction of hysteresis in Memristive devices, Sahar demonstrated that the conductance change and Memristive properties of these nanowire devices were dependent on atmospheric components such as Oxygen and moisture. By testing these devices under vacuum and air respectively Sahar observed that in the presence of air, conduction was augmented by the adsorption of oxygen molecules and moisture onto the surface of nanowires resulting in the transfer of charge in the conduction band and reduction of TiO2 to TiIII oxide. These results contribute to the growing body of knowledge around Memristor devices. Sahar notes that “It was a privilege to be an invited speaker for this conference alongside highly regarded scientists such as Prof. Yutaka Wakayama from National Institute for Materials Science and Kyushu University, Japan and Prof Andrej Singer from Cornell University, USA”.

In November Dr Hugh Manning, was a awarded ‘I’m a scientist get me out of here’ winner for the New Materials section. Commenting on the award, Hugh said “I don’t think I was quite prepared for the huge variety of questions, or the intense fast-paced nature of the online chats. Questions of all types came flooding in; from my favourite animal to my own hobbies to my interest in dinosaurs. This event is so important as it lets students experience first-hand that scientists are people too and a career in STEM is readily achievable if you have a love of science and a passion for knowledge”.

Well done to all!

Appearing in the photo clockwise direction: Dr Chris Hobbs, Dr. Sahar Alialy and Dr. Hugh Manning