Jonathan Coleman Professor

Prof. Coleman is the Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy (1724), and Head of the School of Physics in Trinity College Dublin. He is a physicist and nanomaterials scientist who investigates the solution processing of 1D and 2D nanomaterials and their fabrication into films or composites. The resultant nanomaterial networks have unique properties and can be used in a range of applications.

The foundation of Coleman’s work was the development of Liquid Phase Exfoliation, a transformative technique for producing 2D nanomaterials like graphene from layered solids such as graphite. He has extended this work to produce dozens of different 2D materials including molybdenum disulphide and even 2D talc!  His current research focuses on assembling these materials into conductive and mechanically robust networks for use in areas such as energy storage, sensing, printed electronics. Although an experimentalist by training, a key feature of his work is the development of simple theoretical models to highlight the essential physics governing nanomaterial behavior.

Coleman leads the 2D-PRINTABLE project, part of the pan-European, 1-billion-euro Graphene Flagship, which focuses on research and commercialisation of graphene and related 2D materials. He has published >400 papers in international journals including Nature and Science, has been cited approximately 120,000 times and has an H-index of 125.

In recognition of his achievements, he has received several awards, including the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal (2023), the Tabor Medal from the Institute of Physics (2022), the ACS Nano Lectureship Award (2018). He was the 2012 Science Foundation Ireland researcher of the year and in 2011 was ranked among the top 100 materials scientists globally of the previous decade.

Within AMBER, Prof. Coleman has responsibility for leading the 2D materials pillar programme and co-leading the Engineered Functional Materials theme. This theme centres on the use of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques to allow design of material systems and devices.