News
OSC Master’s Student wins School Award
June 2021
Congratulations to Kate Trinkaus for winning the prize for the best MPhys experimental project this year! Working under Jon Harwell and Ifor Samuel, Kate did excellent work on simulating the electric field and charge generation dynamics in perovskite solar cells, all whilst working in the challenging conditions imposed by COVID. It’s great to see her hard work pay off, and we have high hopes for her future career in solar energy!
OSC Students complete PhDs
January 2021
Congratulations to Mengjie, Natalie, and Wenbo on completing their PhD’s! All three group members have passed their vivas after submitting their PhD theses entitled:
‘Room Temperature Polariton Lasing in Organic Semiconductors’ – Mengjie Wei
‘Optoelectronic measurements of organic and hybrid solar cells’ – Natalie Mica
‘New Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Emitters and Room-Temperature Organic Long Persistent Luminescence‘ – Wenbo Li
24th IKSS Summer School, Krutyn
8th September, 2019
Many members of the Organic Semiconductor Centre attended the 24th IKSS summer school in Krutyn, Poland. Congratulations to Dr Kou Yoshida who won the best talk prize for his work on visible light communication (VLC) at 1 gigabits per second using an organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Congratulations also to Dr Sabina Hillebrandt who won the best poster prize for her work developing highly directional and high brightness red OLEDs for treating vision loss in optogenetics.
Optical Probes 2019
September 2019
Members of the Organic Semiconductor Centre recently presented their work at the Optical Probes conference in Vilnius Lithuania. The Optical Probes conference is one of the leading conferences on understanding organic semiconductors, and the team gave five talks and presented a poster. The presentations ranged from fundamental photophysics, through OLED materials design to organic solar cells and lasers. Pictured are Prof Ifor Samuel, Dr Arvydas Ruseckas, Dr Paloma dos Santos, Dr Rajamalli Pachai and Dr Tomas Matulaitis.
Science Discovery Day, St Andrews
9th March 2019
Science Discovery Day on the 9th of March in the School of Physics and Astronomy was a great chance to show off our work to the public and inspire local childrens’ love of Physics. We made solar cells, raced solar-powered cars, and took the chance to talk to people about the exciting research happening every day in the building. Guests of all ages took part in making their own dye sensitive solar cells, using a raspberry juice dye to absorb light and produce electricity. 6 year-old Eva loved learning about solar power ‘Using raspberry juice to make electricity was really awesome and I loved racing the solar powered cars off the edge of the table with my little sister!’.
Celebrating EU Researchers’ Night, Scottish Parliament
7th March 2019
Members of the OSC visited the Scottish Parliament to showcase their work in organic solar cells, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and explosives sensing on the 7th of March. The exhibition was divided into “making light”, “making electricity” and “applications”. The team took the opportunity to highlight how our science research enables new applications in health, energy, explosives sensing and displays to attending MSPs, Ministers, and other guests, as well as the crucial networks across the EU that have helped facilitate this work. The work was showcased in the beautiful Garden Lobby in the Parliament building, and the opportunity to speak to policy makers was invaluable.
Frontiers in Organic Optoelectronics Symposium
20th November 2018
The Organic Semiconductor Centre hosted a symposium on Frontiers in Organic Optoelectronics as part of our EPSRC-JSPS core to core grant which links our centre to leading centres at Kyoto and Kyushu Universities, as well as the Universities of Regensburg, Queensland, Mons and Sorbonne. We were particularly pleased to welcome Professor Hironori Kaji from Kyoto University and Professor Yoichi Tsuchiya from Kyushu University and four members of their research groups.
Scotland-Japan Symposium, Organic Electronics: Lighting Up the Future
3rd May 2018
Members of the OSC are organising the first Scotland-Japan bilateral symposium on organic optoelectronics to be held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), with the support of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the RSE. Talks and posters at this meeting will highlight advances in organic optoelectronics displays, lighting, communications, and lasing. Following the event, the OSC will welcome distinguished Japanese visitors for lab tours and further collaboration on the 4th of May.
OSC brings Superman’s laser vision a step closer to reality!
May 2018
Superman’s ability to shoot laser beams from his eyes has come a step closer to reality, with discoveries made by a research team at the University of St Andrews. Lasers on the eye – ocular lasers – may now be possible with the development of an ultra-thin membrane laser using organic semiconductors. They could be harnessed for new applications in security, biophotonics and photomedicine. More information about the membrane lasers can be found here.
OSC Bee4exp field trials in Croatia
April 2018
Dr Ross Gillanders and James Glackin returned to Croatia to continue work with collaborators from the University of Zadar, HCR-CTRO and the University of Banja Luka for field trials developing the use of honeybees in the detection of landmines.
OSC Research Fellow wins best poster at PVSAT-14
April 2018
OSC member Dr Lethy K. Jagadamma’s poster “Ultrathin NiO as efficient hole extraction layers for hybrid perovskite solar cells” won a poster prize at PVSAT-14. This conference was held at Imperial College London, with the purpose of bringing together people from all aspects of the solar power industry to discuss current photovoltaic research and its possible application around the world. Lethy’s work shows how the efficiency of perovskite solar cells can be improved by introducing a charge selective nickel oxide layer. She is a Marie-Curie Fellow at the OSC.
Bee4exp project website launched
March 2018
Building on work done during the TIRAMISU project, the NATO SPS funded Bee4exp project aims to develop innovative methods and technologies for landmine detection using honeybees. Explosive sensors and sample collection methods being developed by the OSC are being used in this project to test for the prescence of trace amounts of explosives collected by bees when foraging in mine contaminated areas. More information about the project can be found here.
New class of polymer laser published in ACS Nano, highlighted in phys.org
8th February 2018
Working together with Thomas Krauss in York and Kishan Dholakia in St Andrews, OSC professors Ifor Samuel and Graham Turnbull have created a new class of polymer laser. This research has been published in ACS Nano and was highlighed by phys.org.