Current Group members
Prof. Ifor Samuel
Ifor studied for both his MA and PhD in Physics at Cambridge where he developed his fascination with conjugated polymers. After finishing his PhD he moved to Paris and worked with France Telecom for two years, investigating the non linear optical properties of organic materials. Then he returned to Cambridge for a year, received a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and took up a position at the University of Durham until August 2000 when he moved to St Andrews. In 2001 he started the Organic Semiconductor Centre to encourage collaboration between physicists and chemists in developing the next generation of organic semiconductors and the wider field of organic electronics.
Dr Graham Turnbull
Graham is a senior lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St Andrews. He was born in Edinburgh, and brought up in the Scottish Borders. He graduated with a first-class M.Sci. degree in physics in 1995 and a Ph.D. in 1999, both from the University of St Andrews. His doctoral research project on nonlinear optics was supported by a Carnegie Trust Scholarship. Graham's work on organic semiconductors began as a postdoc at the University of Durham. From 2002 to 2007 he held an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship for research into advanced solid-state polymer laser systems. His current research interests focus on optical applications of soft materials, including organic semiconductor photonics, chemical sensing, nanoimprint lithography, nonlinear optics and optofluidics. Click here for Graham's web page.
Dr Arvydas Ruseckas
Arvydas graduated in Physics from Vilnius University in Lithuania in 1985 and received his PhD in chemical dynamics and physics jointly from the Lund University (Sweden) and the Institute of Physics (Vilnius) in 1999. He joined the team at the University of St Andrews in February 2001. His current research involves studies of photophysics and light amplification in conducting polymers, molecular solids and model organic molecules using ultrashort light pulses and ultrafast spectroscopy.
Dr Salvatore Gambino
Salvatore Gambino received his first degree (MSc degree) in "Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering" from the University of Palermo (Italy) in 2001. The following year he was an INFM fellow at ENEA Research Center (Rome), working on realisation and characterisation of organic LEDs. Then he moved to the University of Palermo where he started his PhD working on charge transport properties of organic semiconductors using time of flight techniques. During his PhD he joined the Organic Semiconductor Centre here in St Andrews to carry out his research in collaboration with Prof. Ifor Samuel. In 2006 he received his PhD from the University of Palermo. The same year he was appointed research fellow at the department of Electronic Engineering (University of Palermo) working on organic solar cells. In 2008 he rejoined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group in St Andrews working on realisation and characterisation of dendrimer based organic light emitting diodes.
Dr Ashu Kumar Bansal
Ashu was born in Saharanpur in India. He received M.Sc in physics from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and M.Tech. in applied optics from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) New Delhi. After this for a brief period he has worked on Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors as a project assistant in central scientific instruments organisation, Chandigarh. Then he moved to Germany to obtain his Ph.D. in physics at University of Regensburg under the supervision of Prof. Alfons Penzkofer on spectroscopic characterisation of organic electroluminescent materials. In June 2008 Ashu has joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group as a research fellow and currently works on the photophysics of light emitting materials and devices.
Dr Gordon Hedley
Gordon was born and brought up in Stranraer in south west Scotland. In 2005 he received an MSci degree in Physics from the University of Durham. His Masters year project at Durham was investigating the dynamics of new OLED compounds and it was here that he first became enthused by the field of chemical physics. He joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelctronics group here in St Andrews in September 2006 under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel to commence study for a PhD on the ultrafast photophysics of iridium complexes. Gordon is currently a research fellow, looking at the photophysical properties of organic systems. Outside of the lab Gordon's interests include history, technology and the dynamic between the two, wiki's and how collaborative development can operate in a scientific environment.
Neil Montgomery
Neil graduated from the Lancaster University in 2008 with an Mphys in Physics. For his master's project, he completed an investigation into the study of propagation and decay of quantum turbulence in superfluid helium-4. He joined St Andrews in September 2008 to start a PhD on polymer lasers under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel and Dr Graham Turnbull.
Yue Wang
Yue was born in Hubei China in 1985. She graduated from the East China Normal University in Shanghai with BEng degree in Electronic Science & Technology in 2007. The following year she went on to receive an MSc degree in Photonics and Optoelectronic Devices jointly from the Universities of St Andrews and Heriot Watt. In September 2008 she joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group to start a PhD under the supervision of Dr Graham Turnbull and Prof. Ifor Samuel. Her research is on developing organic laser fabrication by nanoimprint lithography.
Calvyn Howells
Calvyn was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated from the University of Strathclyde with a MSci in Physics. During his undergraduate studies he conducted two research projects. The first, was on the topic of Non-volatile two colour holographic data storage at the University of Muenster, Germany. The second, which was for his MSci degree, investigated the effects of BEC distributed uniformly in potentials created by counter propagating lasers. On completion of his studies at Strathclyde he began a PhD within the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group, where he is investigating, under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel and Dr Graham Turnbull organic solar cell fabrication.
Steven Quinn
Steve initially joined the Single-Molecule Biophysics lab during the summer of 2008 as a research student before completing his M.Phys. degree in 2009. In both, he investigated the molecular basis of Alzheimer's disease using novel fluorescence based techniques. After completing his undergraduate course in St Andrews, Steve moved to the University of Oxford and worked towards the MSc. by Research degree by developing new surgical tools for fluorescence based laparoscopy. In 2010, he returned to the group and hopes to complete a PhD investigating the early stages of neurodegeneration under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel and Dr Carlos Penedo. In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar, travelling and rugby union.
Alex Ward
Alex was born in a village near Cambridge. In 2010 he graduated from Imperial College London with an MSci in Chemistry. For his year-long masters project, under the supervision of Dr Saif Haque, he studied a novel chemical process to manufacture cadmium sulphide inorganic nanocrystals directly within a semiconducting polymer, in the solid state. The optimisation of such a technique, it was hoped, would lead to increased efficiencies in hybrid polymer-nanocrystal solar cells. In 2010 he joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group at St Andrews and is investigating using photophysical techniques to calculate exciton diffusion lengths in organic semiconductors. In his spare time he enjoys going to gigs, drinking ale, playing squash and running.
Emiliano Rezende Martins
Emiliano is from Ituiutaba, Brazil. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sao Paulo in 2005. Following this he received his MSc in Electrical Engineering in 2008 from the same university, with a thesis topic on modelling of the supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibres. He then joined the Erasmus Mundus Masters of Photonics in 2008. In the first year of this master he studied at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and then moved to the University of St Andrews for his second year. He completed his master in 2010 with a thesis on microstructured silicon solar cells. Emiliano joined the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics group in 2010 under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel to pursue his PhD on microstructured organic semiconductors.
Shuyu Zhang
Shuyu was born in Suzhou, China. He completed his undergraduate studies at Soochow University with a major in Physics in 2007 and his master studies at Fudan University with a major in Plasma Physics in 2010. In September 2010, he joined Prof. Samuel's group here at the University of St Andrews to research organic optoelectronic devices for his PhD. His work focuses on the enhancement of external quantum efficiencies of organic light emitting diodes by tuning materials and their structures. Shuyu spends most of his spare time enjoying travelling as well as a wide range of sports, including tennis, squash, swimming and football.
Zarifi Masri
Zarifi was born in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. He graduated from University of Nottingham with a BSc degree in Physics in 2004. In 2006, he received an MSc degree in Materials Physics and Applications from Loughborough University. His MSc research project focused on the investigation of high strain rate deformation behaviour of Nickel-Titanium shape memory alloy. He joined Prof. Ifor Samuel's group in October 2010 to pursue a PhD on exciton diffusion and charge transport in organic solar cells. Zarifi's other interests are playing football, badminton and squash.
Andrew Matheson
Andrew was born in Inverness and grew up on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. He studied physics at the University of Edinburgh from 2006, graduating with an MPhys in 2011. He joined the group in September 2011 to start a PhD studying the photophysics of organic solar cells, initially focussing on polaron generation, under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel.
Bernd Ebenhoch
Bernd was born in Isny, southern Germany, where he also did his diploma in physics at the University of Applied Sciences nta. After spending two years in industry working on the characterization of X-Ray detectors Bernd moved back to academia, studying for a Masters in photonics at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich. In 2010 he joined the group under Dr Graham Turnbull to complete his Masters project on organic lasers. Bernd then stayed on with the group by starting a PhD in organic solar cells under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel. He is currently investigating device fabrication with novel organic semiconductors to improve solar cell performance.
Iain Robertson
Iain is from the Isle of Skye. He graduated from the University of St Andrews with an MSci in Materials Science in 2011. His studies included a year in the Swiss federal materials research lab EMPA, working on solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrode nanostrucutres, and a Master's project on a computational method for nano crystal structure determination from XRD data. His other interests include reading, woodworking and playing badminton.
James Stevenson
James was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He graduated with an MPhys in physics with photonics from the University of St Andrews in 2011. During his undergraduate studies he was a participant in the organic electronics and applications erasmus intensive program in 2010 and carried out his masters project on electrospinning of polymer nanofibres under Dr Graham Turnbull. James joined the group in 2011 to study for his PhD with the intention of continuing work on electrospinning of semiconducting polymers and working on polymer lasers.
Scott Pearson
Scott graduated with an MPhys in physics from the University of St Andrews in 2011. In the summer of 2010 he examined organic semiconductors using single molecule spectroscopy with the Organic Semiconductor Optoelectronics and Single-Molecule Biophysics groups. In September 2011 he started a PhD continuing his Master’s investigation of charge recombination and photophysical properties of organic solar cells under the supervision of Prof. Ifor Samuel.