Dr Chris Finlayson
M.Sci (Birmingham), Ph.D (Cambridge)

Dr Chris Finlayson

Senior Lecturer

Department of Physics

Contact Details

Profile

Chris graduated with a degree in Physics from the University of Birmingham in 1998. His Ph.D research at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge explored aspects of the synthesis, characterisation and applications of colloidal semiconductor nanoparticles. He then moved to the University of Southampton, where as a postdoctoral fellow, he researched in the areas of photonic crystals and optical fibre based metamaterials. In 2007, he was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, working in the group of Prof Sir Richard Friend at the Cavendish Laboratory, in the area of supramolecular optoelectronics. Recently, Chris has also developed an interest in soft nanophotonics and polymeric photonic materials. He moved to Aberystwyth in April 2011, to take up his appointment as Lecturer in Physics.

Research

  • Supramolecular Materials: Designing functional materials at the smallest scales; the molecular and supramolecular levels. Investigating fundamental characteristics, such as photophysics, charge and energy migration, chirality and surface wetting interactions. Feedback into advanced chemical synthesis strategies.
    • Optoelectronics: Application of molecular semiconductors and conjugated polymers to photovoltaics/solar-cells, LEDs, transistors, optical gain media.
    • Soft Nanophotonics: Polymeric photonic materials (e.g. polymer opals), self-assembly of polymers and sub-micron particles, composite materials with novel electronic and/or mechanical properties
    • Low Dimensional Semiconductors: II-VI and III-V "nanocrystals" and quantum dots. Synthesis, optical and optoelectronic properties; device applications.

Research Groups

Publications

Rosetta, G, Macaire, L, Butters, M & Finlayson, CE 2023, 'Dial-In Synthesis of ‘Polymer Opal’ Core–Interlayer–Shell Composite Nanoparticles', Polymers, vol. 15, no. 17, 3507. 10.3390/polym15173507
Rosetta, G, Tomes, JJ, Butters, M, Gunn, M & Finlayson, CE 2023, 'High-Angle Structural Color Scattering Features from Polymeric Photonic Structures', Crystals, vol. 13, no. 4, 622, pp. 622. 10.3390/cryst13040622
Walker, B & Finlayson, CE 2023, 'Quantum chemistry simulations in an undergraduate project: Tellurophenes as narrow bandgap semiconductor materials', European Journal of Physics, vol. 44, no. 2, 025401. 10.1088/1361-6404/acb9c7
Finlayson, CE, Rosetta, G & Tomes, JJ 2022, 'Spectroscopic Ellipsometry and Optical Modelling of Structurally Colored Opaline Thin-Films', Applied Sciences, vol. 12, no. 10, 4888. 10.3390/app12104888
Rosetta, G, Gunn, M, Tomes, JJ, Butters, M, Pieschel, J, Hartmann, F, Gallei, M & Finlayson, CE 2022, 'Transparent Polymer Opal Thin Films with Intense UV Structural Color', Molecules, vol. 27, no. 12, 3774. 10.3390/molecules27123774
More publications on the Research Portal