Dr Chris Finlayson

M.Sci (Birmingham), Ph.D (Cambridge)

Senior Lecturer

Contact Details

Email: cef2@aber.ac.uk
ORCID: 0000-0002-9068-7584
Office:2.10 Physical Sciences Building
Phone: +44 (0) 1970 622818
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=usljdWMAAAAJ
Research Portal Profile (https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/persons/ac863a4c-d4a1-424f-b1cb-78177bcfc985)

Chris has been a Lecturer in Physics at Aberystwyth since 2011, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2023.

He graduated with a degree in Physics from the University of Birmingham in 1998 and a Ph.D at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge in 2002. His postdoctoral and early-career research interests have spanned semiconductor nanomaterials, photonic crystals, optical fibre based metamaterials, and supramolecular optoelectronics. Highlights included the award of a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship in 2007.

In recent years, Chris has developed interdisciplinary interests in soft matter (polymers physics) and polymeric photonic materials. He received Lecturer of the Year at the AberSU awards in 2024.

Senior Tutor
SSCC staff convenor

Photonics; experimental and simulation/theory. Includes current interdisciplinary work into developing optical detection for bovine-TB. See https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FZ505237%2F1
Soft Matter and Polymers; polymeric photonic materials (e.g. polymer opals), driven-assembly of polymers and sub-micron particles, rheology of composite materials. See https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/phys/research/materials/soft-matter-lab/
Earlier career interests:
- Optoelectronics: Application of molecular semiconductors and conjugated polymers to photovoltaics/solar-cells, LEDs, transistors, optical gain media.
- Supramolecular materials: Designing functional materials at the molecular and supramolecular levels. Investigating fundamental characteristics, such as photophysics, charge and energy migration, and chirality. Feedback into advanced chemical synthesis strategies.
- Low Dimensional Semiconductors: II-VI and III-V "nanocrystals" and quantum dots. Synthesis, optical and optoelectronic properties; device applications.

Materials Research Group
Materials Physics

Bandgap Simulations in Randomized 3D Photonic Crystal Supercells. / Hall, Marcus; Finlayson, Chris E.
In: Photonics, Vol. 13, No. 3, 251, 04.03.2026.