Current members of the UCP group

	Prof. Klaas Wynne, chair of chemical physics in the School of Chemistry at Glasgow University since 2010.
	Dr. Mario González Jiménez, research associate since December 2013. Mario is working on the ultrafast dynamics of biomolecules, in particular, DNA and its interaction with water. He is also pushing the mosquito project in collaboration with malaria researchers in MVLS.
	Dr. Zhiyu Liao, research associate since December 2019. Zhiyu is working on the ERC project CONTROL in which optical tweezers are used to "pull" crystals out of solution. In particular, he will be developing a new set-up using spatial light modulators tocarry out laser-induced phase separation and nucleation (LIPSaN) and combine this with spectroscopic techniques such as fluorescence and Raman,
	Dr. Ben Russell, research associate starting March 2020. Ben will be working on the ERC project CONTROL in which optical tweezers are used to "pull" crystals out of solution. In particular he will be studying non-classical nucleation of small molecules, peptides, and proteins usiong phase diagram control and combine this with LIPSaN.
	Dr. Ankita Das, research associate starting September 2022. Ankita will be investigating crystal nucleation using laser tweezing as part of the ERC project CONTROL.
	Laure-Anne Hayes, PhD student starting 2023. Laure-Anne will be investigating solutions that provide a cross-over between molecular and soft-matter behaviour that hopefully will also provide insight in crystal nucleation and amorphous matter.
	Dr. Daniel Kuroda, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Louisiana State University, http://2dirlab.lsu.edu. Dan will visit us to apply optical Kerr effect spectroscopy to battery materials.
	Bethany Burt, final year project student 2023/4, ultrafast spectroscopy of aggregation

Former members

Josh Mitton, LKAS PhD student since October 2018 jointly with Roderick Murray-Smith in the School of Computing Science. Josh has been working on machine learning in chemistry.

Dr. Nikita Tukachev, research associate from October 2020 to December 2022 jointly with Dr. Hans Senn. Nikita has been investigating the numerical description of terahertz Raman spectra of biomolecules using MM/QM techniques.

Sarah Huynen

PhD student started October 2020. Sarah was working on nonclassical crystal nucleation and fluorescence.

John Bolling

PhD student since October 2017. John's project is on microscopic imaging and manipulation of matter usign lasers.

Dr. Andrew Farrell

PhD student from October 2016 till January 2020. Andy's research project involved ultrafast dynamics in liquids, liquid-liquid transitions, and nucleation.

Dr. Finlay Walton

Finlay Walton PhD student since October 2015. Finlay's research project is on microscopy and manipulation of phase transitions including crystallisation, liquid-liquid transitions, and liquid crystal transitions. He also aided the mosquito project before he started his PhD.

Dr. Kathryn Allan

Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) editorial assistant since 2017.

Dr Judith Reichenbach

Judith Reichenbach PhD student since October 2013, graduated in 2017. Her research project involved the study of non-classical crystal nucleation effects and ionic liquids using ultrafast spectroscopy.

Dr Gopakumar Ramakrishnan

Research associate from February 2014 to March 2017. Gopakumar is an expert in terahertz spectroscopy and was carrying out a project on terahertz spectroscopy of biomolecules.

Dr. Chris Syme

Research associate from October 2012 to July 2016. Chris is an expert in Raman spectrosocpy and microscopy and was carrying out a project using confocal fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging.

Dr. Joanna (Asia) Mosses

Joanna Mosses, PhD student with KW since October 2010, graduated in 2017. Her research project involves the study of liquid-liquid phase transitions using microscopy and light scattering.

Dr. Thomas Harwood

Thomas Harwood, visiting PhD student from the lab of Elizabeth Ellis at the University of Strathclyde. Graduated in 2016.

Thomas Sonnleitner

Thomas Sonnleitner, visiting PhD student from the lab of Richard Buchner at the University of Regensburg. Studies room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) using dielectric relaxation spectroscopy.

Dr. David Turton

Dr. David Turton, research associate with KW from 2004 to 2013. David is an expert in ultrafast laser spectroscopy, in particular, terahertz spectroscopies. These have been applied to various liquids and biomolecular systems.

Marc White

Marc White, MSc student with Lee Cronin, Chick Wilson, and KW, October 2010-2011. His research project involved the study of crystallisation and solutions using light scattering.

Dr. Scott Campbell

Scott Campbell Former PhD student with KW since December 2007. Terahertz techniques and spectroscopy.

Dr. Marco Candelaresi

Marco Candelaresi joined in the group as Postdoctoral fellow in July 2009. He was awarded the PhD in Atomic and Molecular spectroscopy by LENS (European Laboratory for Non Linear Spectroscopy) University of Florence in February 2009. The PhD activity concerned mainly the structural and dynamical behaviour of dipeptides in different solvent, and the chemical equilibrium of methylacetate in water. With KW he was developing terahertz field-induced second-harmonic generation (TFISH) experiments in order to study molecular dynamics of liquids. Since November 2010 he has been working with Neil Hunt in the Department of Physics at Strathclyde.

Prof. Neil Hunt

Neil is a Reader in the Department of Physics at the University of Strathclyde. He was an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow working in the ultrafast physical-chemistry group from 2004. For more information see Neil Hunt on the academic staff pages.

Dr. Kitsakorn Locharoenrat

Kitsakorn Locharoenrat Kitsakorn received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand and continued for his MS in Processing Technology at the Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand. His studied for his PhD in Physical Materials Science with Prof Mizutani at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Ishikawa, Japan. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Ultrafast group in BCP in 2008/9 and worked on novel terahertz radiation emitters based on nanostructured surfaces. He now works at Research for Electronic Science in Japan.

Dr. Gregor H. Welsh

Gregor Gregor studied physics at Strathclyde and did his PhD in our group graduating in June 2008 on the thesis entitled "Understanding and Control of Ultrafast Currents for Terahertz Pulse Generation". Bound copies of his thesis are available in the Physics reading room and the Strathclyde library. He is currently a postdoc in the TOPS group.

Dr. Andy Turner

Andy Andy has been a postdoctoral fellow in the ultrafast sub-group from 2004-2006. As a theoretician, he provided theoretical insight into the varied experimental results. Andy is principally interested in using state-of-the-art computational and quantum theoretical techniques to study the dynamic properties of biological molecules. He is currently working in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh as Research Computing Officer.

Dr. John J. Carey

John J. Carey © KW JJ studied Physics at Strathclyde and graduated with a BSc Hons in 1999. He is a former postgraduate student in KW's group and received his PhD in Physics in 2002 (You can download a copy of his thesis "Near-Field Effects of Terahertz Pulses" (PDF, 5Mb)). He has been a postdoc in the ultrafast sub-group studying varied aspects of terahertz pulses. He currently works with Coherent Scotland in Glasgow. He married Justyna (see below) and has two kids.

Dr. Gerard Giraud

Gerard Giraud GG did his undergrad partially in France and partially at Strathclyde. He was a postgrad student in our group working on optical Kerr-effect experiments to study room-temperature organic ionic liquids and proteins. His PhD thesis is online as a PDF file. GG now works at the University of Edinburgh.

Dr. Justyna Zawadzka

Justyna Zawadzka JZ got her master's degree in Poland and got her PhD working in the ultrafast group as a postgrad. Her research involved making femtosecond electron pulses by using multiphoton excitation of metal surfaces and surfaces modified by nanolithography. Her PhD thesis is online as a PDF file. She married John Carey (see above) and has two kids.

2 October 2023: New PhD student Laure-Anne Hayes started today. She will start out working on some interesting cross-over between between molecular and soft-matter physics.
24 January 2023: A press release on our NatComm paper came out: SCIENTISTS OPEN NEW WINDOW ON THE PHYSICS OF GLASS FORMATION
16 January 2023: Our paper "Understanding the emergence of the boson peak in molecular glasses" has come out in NatureComms https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-35878-6. Most mysterious aspect of glass transition is the boson peak: a small effect but reflection of supramolecular structures responsible for formation of glass instead of crystal. Widely studied but poorly observed as obscured by other contributions. We used symmetry to get clean view of boson peak in tetrabutyl orthosilicate using Raman, a pre-peak in SAXS/WAXS, and boson peak in calorimetry. MD simulations (constrained by experiments) show boson peak caused by clusters of over-coordinated molecules.This opens way to investigation of detailed changes behaviour boson-peak & glasses in general as function temperature, pressure, fragility, & other physicochemical parameters. Fantastic collaboration with Gabriele Sosso (@SossoGroup) & PhD student Trent Barnard who did MD (@warwickchem) and the late Paul McMillan (@UCLChemistry). OKE by @magonji , rheology/DSC Ben Russell & undergrad Laure-Anne Hayes, DFT Nikita Tukachev & Hans Senn (@UofGChem),NMR Uroš Javornik & Gregor Mali (@kemijski ), SAXS/WAXS at the @DiamondLightSou with @evilokapi & Martin Wilding (@ChemistryCU), & calorimetry by Motohiro Nakano & Yuji Miyazaki (@ScienceOU).With funding from @ERC_Research #AdG, @LeverhulmeTrust , @DiamondLightSou , @EPSRC , @ARRS_rfo , HPC Midlands+ ConsortiumThe molecules were serendipitously "discovered" (in the @SigmaAldrich catalogue) by PhD student Andy Farrell & undergrad @NotchSg in 2019.
20 Sep 2022: Warm welcome to postdoc Dr. Ankita Das (PhD @TIFRScience & briefly @UofIllinois ) who will be working on laser-induced crystal nucleation funded by our ERC AdG CONTROL. She already has broad range of skills from synthesis to ultrafast lasers and plasmonics.
8 August 2022: Met with the ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Karol van Oosterom to talk about scientific cooperation between Scotland and the Netherlands
27 June 2022: Our research on malaria and spectroscopy was featured on BBC Arabic Science programme
7 April 2022: Zhiyu’s lovely paper on the role of metastable amorphous intermediates in laser-induced nucleation has come out (ASAP) in JACS https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c11154 Laser-induced nucleation was first discovered in 1996 but never properly explained. We previously thought that it might be related to liquid-liquid phase separation. Now, in glycine at least, we have found that the key step is the formation of amorphous particles, which when touched by a laser trigger the nucleation of crystals. The preponderance of gamma glycine over alpha glycine in our experiments suggests that the laser action is through the Kerr effect. There are plenty of reasons to believe that both amorphous particle formation and its role in nucleation (laser induced or otherwise) are much more common, so expect to hear more about this sort of thing…
3 February 2022: Former PhD student Andrew Farrell passed his viva this morning with only minor corrections. Thanks to external Steve Meech (UEA Chemistry ) and internal Gordon Hedley.
16 June 2021: In our publication in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 23, 13250 – 13260 (2021), we use femtosecond optical Kerr-effect spectroscopy to determine the low-frequency Raman spectra of nucleotides and oligomeric DNAs with unrivalled dynamic range and signal-to-noise. These samples were carefully chosen to form G-quadruplexes, structures formed by four strands of DNA, under the appropriate conditions. We find that the G-quadruplexes exhibit a highly unusual group of gigahertz to terahertz highly underdamped delocalised vibrational modes. As these modes are near kBT/h at room temperature, they are expected to be the thermally excited modes required to understand the interaction of DNA with proteins. This provides a new perspective on the role of low-frequency vibrational modes in the biological function of DNA.
13 April 2020: Just accepted in JACS, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.0c01712, shows why liquid-liquid transitions happen: competition between different local molecular packings resembling crystal polymorphs results in transition from geometric frustration to kinetic frustration. Funded by @ERC_Research, @EPSRC, @LeverhulmeTrust, and @DiamondLightSou. So many contributions: PhDs @finlaywalton, John Bolling and Andy Farrell, RAs @heschemistrypro and @magonji, as well as Claire Wilson, Hans Senn, Gianfelice Cinque. And @UofGChem BSc undergrad Jamie McEwen who serendipitously found key that solved the mystery. And last but not least, our first ever crystal structure in the CCDC. F. Walton, J. Bolling, A. Farrell, J. MacEwen, C. Syme, M. González Jiménez, H. Senn, C. Wilson, G. Cinque, and K. Wynne, ‘Polyamorphism mirrors polymorphism in the liquid–liquid transition of a molecular liquid’, ChemRxiv (https://dx.doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.9891491.v2) and J. Am. Chem. Soc. in press (2020).
13 January 2020: We have a PhD positionin Chemistry for UK/EU nationals – Laser control over crystal nucleation – Closing Date: 1 April 2020
10 December 2019: Congratulations to Finlay Walton who passed his PhD viva today with minor corrections. Thanks to external Andy Alexander and internal Adrian Lapthorn.
4 October 2019: Finlay's paper "Using optical tweezing to control phase separation and nucleation near a liquid–liquid critical point" came out in Soft Matter, see https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C9SM01297D.
16 September 2019: Our new paper "Prediction of mosquito species and population age structure using mid-infrared spectroscopy and supervised machine learning" has come out in Welcome Open Research 4, 76 (2019) doi: 0.12688/wellcomeopenres.15201.3 feauturing an international author list: Mario González Jiménez, Simon A. Babayan, Pegah Khazaeli1, Margaret Doyle, Finlay Walton, Elliott Reedy, Thomas Glew, Mafalda Viana, Lisa Ranford-Cartwright, Abdoulaye Niang, Doreen J. Siria, Fredros O. Okumu, Abdoulaye Diabaté, Heather M. Ferguson, Francesco Baldini, Klaas Wynne.
11 July, 2019: The School of Chemistry has a lectureship (assistant prof.) position in Physical Chemistry, see https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BTM762/lecturer-in-physical-chemistry …. The applicant’s research should strategically align with that of the Chemical Photonics Group (https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/chemistry/research/cp/ …). Closing date: 1 August 2019.
19 June, 2019: We have two postdoctoral position available now funded by the five-year European Research Council (ERC) funded project Laser Control over Crystal Nucleation (CONTROL), which aims to develop a novel platform for the manipulation of phase transitions, crystal nucleation, and polymorph control based on optical tweezing and plasmonic tweezing. Closing Date: 12 August 2019. More details here.
3 June 2019: A polarisation microscopy photo of a new polymorph of a molecular crystal growing into another polymorph won the EPSRC Science Photo Competition Eureka & Discovery category. Photo by @finlaywalton Manuscript in preparation... Research funded by @EPSRC
28 March 2019: KW has been awarded a €2.49M European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant: CONTROL - Laser control over crystal nucleation. We will use sophisticated light sources to “pull” crystals out of solution, control their properties, and thereby enable new applications in the pharmaceutical industry and elsewhere. See https://erc.europa.eu/news/erc-2018-advanced-grants-results
28 January 2019: Maternity cover job opening (in principle 6 months), Editorial Support Assistant to assist KW as JACS associate editor, linked to the University of Glasgow, part time, see https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BPT274/editorial-support-assistant
22 December, 2018: Our mosquito work made it into the christmas (22 December 2018) issue of The Economist. Fraunhofer lines?!?! Anyway, the gist is about right and at least they mention Mario González Jiménez and Fredros Okumu.
29 November 2018: Today we were awarded a Leverhulme Research Project Grant, 'Delocalised phonon-like modes in organic and bio-molecules', jointly with Adrain Lapthorn and Hans Senn. This will fund our experimental work on delocalised modes in proteins and DNA as well as novel MD simulations.
1 October 2018: Delighted that today Josh Mitton is starting on a joint machine learning PhD project with Roderick Murray-Smith and Francesco Baldini (and unofficially but no less importantly Roman Biek, Simon Babayan, Lisa Ranford-Cartwright, Heather Ferguson, Adrian Lapthorn, and Simon Rogers)
2 August 2018: Judith's nice paper "Frustration vs Prenucleation: Understanding the Surprising Stability of Supersaturated Sodium Thiosulfate Solutions" came out in JPC B http://dx.doi.org/0.1021/acs.jpcb.8b04112
8 May 2018: KW is given the 2018 Chemical Dynamics Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry for outstanding contributions to time-resolved spectroscopy.
9 March 2018: Dr Mario González Jiménez wins the 2018 RSC Twitter Conference poster prize in the #RSCPhys category with https://twitter.com/magonji/status/970952685938757632
5 March 2018: Our paper "Control over phase separation and nucleation using a laser-tweezing potential", Nature Chemistry 10, 506 (2018) (http://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-018-0009-8) just came out! See a write up at Un-mixing using lasers to make new crystals.
2 March 2018: I am delighted to be able to announce that, funded by EPSRC, I have published a paper in J Phys Chem with a picture of a mayonnaise jar. See doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.8b01006. As promised, I will eat my hat with mayonnaise over the next few days.
2 January 2018: "The Mayonnaise Effect" is the #1 most read article in JPCLett of the past month. See http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b03207.
8 December 2017: My paper "The Mayonnaise Effect" came out in JPC Lett. See http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b03207. See also this short explanation of the Mayonnaise Effect.
29 November 2017: We have a prestigious Lord Kelvin-Adam Smith (LKAS) 4-year PhD studentship on “Machine learning in spectroscopy” available for UK, EU, and international students. We will combine expertise in chemistry, spectroscopy, entomology, and computing science to apply state-of-the-art machine-learning techniques to the determination of traits in insects and the design of novel molecules for attracting or repelling insects. The application deadline is 12 noon, Friday 12th January 2018. Much more information at https://tinyurl.com/y927jhpo.
27 October 2017: Wahey again! PhD student Judith Reichenbach passed her PhD viva today with her thesis "Structure and Dynamics in Ionic Liquids and Concentrated Salt Solutions: An Ultrafast Spectroscopy Study"! Thanks to external examiner Steve Meech, internal Steven Sproules, and convenor Adrian Lapthorn.
28 September 2017: Wahey! PhD student Joanna (Asia) Mosses passed her PhD viva today with her thesis 'Phase transitions and mesophases in molecular liquids and solutions: spectroscopic and imaging studies’'! A thank you also to the external examiner Mischa Bonn, internal Malcolm Kadodwala, and convenor Justin Hargreaves.
15 June 2017: Our paper "Spectrum of slow and super-slow (picosecond to nanosecond) water dynamics around organic and biological solutes" by Gopa Ramakrishnan, Mario González-Jiménez, Adrian Lapthorn, and Klaas Wynne, on the universally imhomogeneous solvation shell around solutes came out in J.Phys.Chem. Lett today. See http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01127. Should be freely available soon.
31 May 2017: We got a paper out in JACS today "Phonon-like Hydrogen-Bond Modes in Protic Ionic Liquids". PhD student Judith's first paper in the best chemistry journal in the universe (... :-)) Also with PhD student Stuart Ruddell in David France's group, former undergrad Julio Lemes, David Turton, and Mario González. Download for free at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b03036
19 April 2017: Our paper "Ultrafast 2D-IR and optical Kerr effect spectroscopy reveal the impact of duplex melting on the structural dynamics of DNA" came out in PCCP today. It's open access so download it for free. Collaboration with Neil Hunt and colleagues at Strathclyde and Paul Donaldson and colleagues at the STFC Central Laser Facility.
1 April 2017: Started as Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS)!
17 February 2017: Our paper "Frustration of crystallisation by a liquid–crystal phase" came out in Scientific Reports today. Read more about this research: Frustrating liquid crystals and watch a movie about it on YouTube here.
November 2016: We are looking for somebody to join us as a PhD student to work on imaging and laser manipulation of nucleation phenomena. A great project on the border between physics,chemistry, and engineering.
1 October 2016: Andrew Farrell joined the group as a new PhD student to work on ultrafast spectroscopy.
5 July 2016: Spain's Consul General visits the group on invitation by Mario.
6 June 2016: A number of places have taken up our press release. Exclusive: Professor Klaas Wynne On Decoding DNA Sound Bubbles & Human Life on HealthAim.com is probably the weirdest. Also Vibraciones y burbujas de sonido del ADN son esenciales para la vida shown on the homepage of SINC.
1 June 2016: Our paper Observation of coherent delocalised phonon-like modes in DNA under physiological conditions was published to day in Nature Communications. See also Sound-like bubbles whizzing around in DNA are essential to life and a similar Glasgow University press release.
11 March 2016: Tommy Harwood successfully defended his thesis today at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy & Biomedical Sciences (SIPBS). Tommy studied for his PhD under Elizabeth Ellis (SIPBS) and came to work in the UCP labs in 2012 to do terahertz spectroscopy of biomolecules and optical Kerr-effect spectroscopy of small biomolecules, proteins, and DNA. Although he is not officially our PhD student, in practice he did all the spectroscopy experiments under our supervision at Glasgow University. Check out our paper "Terahertz underdamped vibrational motion governs protein-ligand binding in solution" came out in Nature Communications.
November 2015: A £0.5M EPSRC grant “Mapping and controlling nucleation” was awarded to Klaas Wynne and David France in the School of Chemistry. The nucleation of new phases from solution, such as the nucleation of crystals, is of immense importance to both industry and fundamental science. Industrial crystallisation has changed little in the past 350 years and suffers from an embarrassing lack of control with sometimes unexpected and severe financial consequences. The new research programme will image and control the early stages of nucleation. Driving liquid systems very far from equilibrium will allow the creation of meta- and unstable states that will give rise to nucleation and spinodal decomposition. The subsequent highly non-equilibrium processes will be controlled using a novel instrument that will change the study of crystal nucleation and will make the first steps towards control over the polymorph that crystallises. It involves laser-induced nucleation using powerful picosecond and femtosecond lasers, and programmable optics.
June 2015: We were joined by Finlay Walton, initially as summer project student for summer 2015 and in October as a PhD student. The summer project involves the study of mosquitos while the PhD project will be on microscopy of phase transitions.
April 2015: UCP group members Chris Syme, Joanna Mosses, and Klaas Wynne win 2nd and 3rd price in College photo competition. See Technical photography competition 2015.
March 2015: Mapping and Controlling (Crystal) Nucleation. Applications are invited for a fully-funded 3.5-year PhD studentship at the University of Glasgow to study the chemical physics of (crystal) nucleation in the Ultrafast Chemical Physics (UCP) group in the School of Chemistry under the supervision of Prof Klaas Wynne. The PhD project involves (laser) microscopy and laser control of the early stages of nucleation in liquids. It involves laser-induced nucleation using powerful lasers and programmable diffractive optics. The new instrument will be used to carry out experiments that range from creating crystals of the desired type to shedding light on the origins of life. We are now looking for a PhD student who is interested in developing new imaging techniques including the use of spatial light modulators and interfacing a microscope with a high power pulsed laser. The ideal candidate for this position is a chemical physicist, physical chemist, or somebody with knowledge of optics or microscopy. The PhD student will be working alongside a team of postdoctoral researchers with experience in ultrafast techniques, chemical physics, and microscopy. More information and application details can be found here.
January 2015: Another exciting imaging paper out for 2015. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. has published our paper Order Parameter of the Liquid–Liquid Transition in a Molecular Liquid in which we use for the first time fluorescene lifetime imaging (FLIM) to study a liquid-liquid phase transition in supercooled triphenyl phosphite.
November 2014: Our paper "Crystal templating through liquid–liquid phase separation" has been published as an Advanced Article in ChemComm.See also The role of liquid-liquid demixing in crystallisation: icy fluff balls.
June 2014: Our paper "Terahertz underdamped vibrational motion governs protein-ligand binding in solution" came out in Nature Communications. The University published a news item Proteins ‘ring like bells’, which was taken up by Science Daily and a bunch of other news outlets. Strangely, it was also picked up by a creationist website who thought it was proof of design. The best write up was on an Austrina site Späte Bestätigung für Erwin Schrödinger? For the paper itself see here.
May 2014: Our paper "Stokes-Einstein-Debye Failure in Molecular Orientational Diffusion: Exception or Rule?" finally came out in J .Phys. Chem. B, see http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp5012457. It truely has the loveliest Kerr-effect/Raman data I have ever seen.
21 February 2014: Dr Gopakumar (Gopa) Ramakrishna officially started at Research Assistant in the group. Gopa will concentrate on terahertz spectroscopy.
2 December: Today, Dr Mario González Jiménez officially started as a Research Assistant in the group. He'll be working on femtosecond spectroscopy of biomolecules.
1 October 2013: Today, Judith Reichenbach officially started her PhD studies in the group. She'll be working on nucleation using femtosecond spectroscopy.
18-20 September 2013: Faraday Discussion 167 on Mesostructure and Dynamics in Liquids and Solutions was a sucess with a lot of (heated) discussion. The published volume should come out later in the year.
April 2013: Another EPSRC grant funded on "Solvation dynamics and structure around proteins and peptides: collective network motions or weak interactions"
October 2012: Dr Christopher Syme has started as a research associate in the group. He will be using confocal fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging to study phase transitions in liquids.
May 2012: Fully funded PhD studentships in the Wynne group. Applications are invited for a number of PhD studentships in the Wynne group. Some of these studentships are part of the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation (CMAC).
9 May 2012: Our paper "The dynamic crossover in water does not require bulk water" just came out in PCCP, see doi:10.1039/c2cp40703e. In a nutshell, it shows that you only need one water molecule to have bulk water properties (as long as that water molecule can form a water pentamer).
18/4/12: The latest issue of PCCP (Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics), the top physical chemistry journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, is dedicated to such ultrafast chemical dynamics. The special issue was guest edited by Prof Klaas Wynne in the School of Chemistry at Glasgow University and his colleague Dr Neil Hunt at the University of Strathclyde. Special issue PCCP on Ultrafast Chemical Dynamics.
12/4/12: Glasgow University press release Funding boost for Ultrafast Chemical Physics.
March 2012: Postdoc position in the group.See http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AEF581/research-associate/. Apply online at www.glasgow.ac.uk/jobs(enter Reference Number 001765). Closing date: 29 April 2012
February 2012: The 2011 UCP meeting in Glasgow was discussed in the March 2012 issue of Nature Chemistry: Ultrafast chemical physics: In search of molecular movies. The future is ultrafast!
December 2011: The International Workshop on Ultrafast Chemical Physics & Physical Chemistry (UCP 2011) was held in Glasgow. Photos from the UCP2011 event here.
October 2011: The Ultrafast Chemical Physics group has won a £0.7M EPSRC grant to study liquid-liquid phase transitions using microscopy in collaboration with Chemical Engineering at Strathclyde. EPSRC grant for UCP group.
July 2011: We would like to cordially invite you to submit a paper to a special issue of PCCP on femtosecond spectroscopy entitled "Ultrafast Chemical Dynamics". Topics that will be covered include: * ultrafast dynamics of reactions in proteins * ultrafast structure and dynamics of liquids and solutions * ultrafast chemical processes at interfaces * ultrafast dynamics of electronically excited states * ultrafast atomic structure and dynamics in the solid state. The special issue will feature a number of invited overviews followed by contributed papers. The deadline for submissions is 14 November 2011. For more information, see http://blogs.rsc.org/cp/2011/06/29/pccp-themed-issue-ultrafast-chemical-dynamics/.
July 2011: the European Conference of Crystal Growth ECCG4 will be held 17 to 20 June 2012 in Glasgow.
7 July 2011: the EPSRC-funded Coherent regenerative amplifier (producing 23-fs 2.7-mJ 800-nm pulses at a repetition rate of 1 kHz) has been reinstalled in our lab again. This is in addition to a new Coherent Micra-10 (producing 15-fs 800-nm pulses at 80 MHz).
May 2011: A Faraday Discussion on 'Mesostructure and dynamics in liquids and solution' will be held in September 2013 most likely in Bristol.The organising committee consists at the moment of Alan Soper (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory), Austen Angell (Arizona State University), Ken Seddon (Queen's Belfast), Stephen Meech (UEA), an Klaas Wynne (Glasgow University).
May 2011: The new ultrafast chemical physics laser lab is pretty much ready. Now all we need is some (working) femtosecond lasers...
16 November 2010: New website for the International Workshop on Ultrafast Chemical Physics & Physical Chemistry UCP 201.
October 2010: Next Ultrafast Chemical Physics meeting (UCP 2011) set for 14-16 December 2011 at the University of Strathclyde. Confirmed speakers include Prof David Klug (Imperial College, multidimensional spectroscopy), Prof Andrea Cavalleri (University of Oxford, femtosecond X-ray science) and Prof Klaas Wynne (University of Glasgow, terahertz spectroscopy). In addition we have confirmed attendance of Prof Dwayne Miller (University of Toronto) as plenary speaker for the conference.
2 October 2010: Positions. A lectureship (assistant professorship) in ultrafast physical chemistry is available. The ideal candidate would be interested in ultrafast femtosecond spectroscopy of the condensed phase or an allied area. Brand new lab space will be available. Ref: 00057-10, Closing Date: 29th October 2010.
1 November 2010: KW's official start as chair in physical chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow.
August 2010: Our paper in JACS (described in Serving nanoparticle “soup”) has been cited 19 times on Web of Science exactly one year after its publication. It describes how using multiple spectroscopies, we discovered mesoscopic structure in room-temperature ionic liquids.
24 March 2010: Our paper The effects of anion and cation substitution on the ultrafast solvent dynamics of ionic liquids: A time-resolved optical Kerr-effect spectroscopic study, JCP 119, 464 (2003) was selected as highlighted reference in the JCP Spotlight Collection on ionic liquids, March 2010.
12 March 2010: Our paper Universal nonexponential relaxation: Complex dynamics in simple liquids was selected JChemPhys editors’ choice as one of the most innovative and influential articles in the field of Chemical Physics in 2009. See http://jcp.aip.org/jcp/editors_choices_2009.
5 January 2010: Our paper Universal nonexponential relaxation: Complex dynamics in simple liquids was the 3rd most downloaded paper of J. Chem. Phys. in December 2009.
5 August 2009: Read more about our latest paper in JACS in Serving nanoparticle "soup".
4 August 2009: We were joined by new postdoc Marco Candelaresi.
May 2009: New ultrafast physical-chemistry lab is ready!
30/31 October 2008: The 2008 ultrafast physical-chemistry (UCP) meeting was held at Strathclyde.
10 July 2008: We were joined by new postdoc Kitsakorn Locharoenrat.
23 May 2008: Our paper "Glasslike Behavior in Aqueous Electrolyte Solutions" was selected "Editors' Choice" in the 23 May issue of the journal Science (PDF, 800kB).
12 May 2008: Groups wins £0.6M EPSRC grant "Two-dimensional terahertz–IR spectroscopy: a unique probe of ultrafast hydrogen-bond dynamics of liquid water and model systems" by KW, JOK, and DJSB.
2 May 2008: Strathclyde will host the "International Workshop on ultrafast physical-chemistry 2008 (UCP ‘08)" on 30/31 October 2008 to be held in the Senate/Court suite. Plenary speaker is Prof Robin Hochstrasser FRSE (University of Pennsylvania). Confirmed invited speakers are Prof Casey Hynes (CNRS, Paris and University of Colorado, Boulder), Prof Charles Schmuttenmaer (Yale), Prof Majed Chergui (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne), Prof Mischa Bonn (AMOLF, Amsterdam), Prof Peter Hamm (University of Zurich), and Prof Thomas Elsaesser (Max Born Institute, Berlin). The workshop is organised by Angus J. Bain (UCL), David Klug (Imperial), Steve Meech (UEA), Neil Hunt (Strathclyde), and Klaas Wynne (Strathclyde).
24 April 2008: Our paper "Glasslike Behavior in Aqueous Electrolyte Solutions" came out in J. Chem. Phys. A summary of the paper in simple terms (best attempt anyway) is on the page The science of syrup and traffic jams.
4 March 2008: Visiting professor Robin Hochstrasser of the University of Pennsylvania has been elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. This is a prestigious fellowship for scientists of great international renown and we are delighted that Robin has been honoured in this way.
18 March 2007: New paper in JACS on terahertz spectra associated with a helix to coil transition in a peptide. Read more about it in the research highlight Observing ‘The Lubricant of Life’
10 January 2007: New paper on terahertz emission from nanostructured surfaces has come out in PRL. Read more about it in the research page on terahertz technology.