News

1. 27^th Dynamics of Molecular Collisions Conference, Big Sky, Montana, July 2019

   Ken, Matt, Tom Sharples and Joe Leng attended this international conference, organised by our collaborator Prof Tim Minton in Montana. Ken gave an invited talk on our latest work on OH LIF imaging, titled 'Real-Space LIF Imaging of Molecules Scattered from Liquid Surfaces'. Matt, Tom and Joe presented four posters between them on both gas-phase stereodynamics and gas-liquid surface scattering.

2. 28^th International Symposium on Molecular Beams, Edinburgh, June 2019

   We organised this major international meeting in Edinburgh at the Surgeons' Hall in the last week of June. Ken was Chair of the local organising committee, which was comprised of all of the Chemical Dynamics PIs, plus Dr Tom Sharples, Dr Helen Kimber, Dr Nikoleta Kotsina and Mr Maks Roman. The conference was a great success, and it was even sunny in Edinburgh for our visitors. All of the post-docs and students presented posters, Nikoleta Kotsina gave a hot-topic talk titled 'Ultrafast molecular spectroscopy using a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber light source', and Matt stepped in at the last minute to cover an empty slot with a talk about NO(A) inelastic scattering 'Vector and Scalar Correlations in Rotationally Inelastic Scattering'.

   

3. Robert Bianchini successfully defends his thesis

   Congratulations to Dr Robert Bianchini, who successfully defended his PhD thesis 'Development of New Methods to Study Collisions of OH Radicals with Liquid Surfaces'.

4. Engineering and Physical Sciences poster event, Heriot-Watt University, UK

   Katya Moncrieff presented a poster on "CW-FM spectroscopy as a probe of scattering dynamics at the gas-liquid interface", and Maks Roman won an EPS poster prize for his poster "Real-space imaging of OD collisions with liquid surfaces".

   

5. 22^nd European Conference on the Dynamics of Molecular Systems (MOLEC 2018), Dinard, France

   Matt, Tom Sharples and Aisling Stewart attended this conference in August 2018. Matt gave a hot-topic talk on "Real-Space Laser Induced Fluorescence Imaging of Gas-Liquid Interfacial Scattering", Aisling presented a hot topic talk on "Experiment-Theory Discrepancy: Implications for the Interstellar Ammonia Thermometer", and Tom presented a poster on "Insights into NO(A) electronic quenching from rotational-state correlated stereodynamics".

6. 25^th International Symposium on Gas Kinetics and Related Phenomena, Lille, France

   Matt attended this conference in July 2018. He gave an invited talk on "Inelastic and Reactive Scattering at Gas-Liquid Interfaces".

7. Spectroscopy and Dynamics on Multiple Potential Energy Surfaces workshop, Telluride, USA

   Ken attended this conference in July 2018. He presented a talk on "Probing liquid surfaces using reactive-atom scattering".

8. Gordon Research Conference on Molecular Interactions and Dynamics, Stonehill, MA

   Ken and Helen Kimber attended this conference in July 2018. Ken gave an invited talk on "Real-Space Imaging of OH Radicals Scattering from Liquid Surfaces".

9. Dr Townsend and Prof Paterson win a new EPSRC grant

   Novel Non-linear Optical-Fibre Sources for Time-resolved Molecular Dynamics: Towards the Next Generation of Ultrafast Spectroscopy - more details of this grant can be found on the EPSRC website.

10. New research students arrive

    A warm welcome to the new PhD students Maks Roman and Katya Moncrieff who joined the McKendrick and Costen groups for AY17-18. We also welcome the new undergraduate and Erasmus students joining all of the research groups at the start of this semester.

11. Tom Luxford wins EPS PhD Thesis prize

    Congratulations to Tom, who won an EPS prize for his PhD Thesis "The Stereodynamics of the Inelastic Collisions of NO(A) with Atoms and Molecules"

12. Faraday Discussion, Ionic liquids: from fundamental properties to practical applications, Cambridge, U.K.

    Simon Purcell attended the discussion in September 2017, presenting and discussing our paper 'Determining the composition of the vacuum-liquid interface in ionic-liquid mixtures' 10.1039/C7FD00175D

13. 34th International Symposium on Free Radicals, Hayama, Japan

    Ken and Simon Purcell attended the conference in August 2017. Ken gave an invited talk on 'Fundamentals of Chemical and Physical Change at Surfaces and Interfaces', while Simon won a J. Chem. Phys. sponsered poster prize for his poster "O-Atom Scattering at the Vacuum-Liquid Interface: The Effect of Cation Fluorination on the Surface Structure of Ionic-Liquid Mixtures".

    

14. Gordon Research Conference, Fundamentals of Chemical and Physical Change at Surfaces and Interfaces, Newport, RI

    Ken and Robert Bianchini attended the conference in July 2017. Ken gave an invited talk on 'Real-space imaging of OH radicals scattered from liquid surfaces', while Robert presented a poster and gave a talk at the associated GRS on his experiments on OH inelastic scattering at liquid surfaces.

15. Dynamics of Molecular Collisions, Granlibakken, Lake Tahoe, CA

    Matt, Tom Sharples and Paul Lane attended the conference in July 2017. Matt gave an invited talk on CMB-VMI NO(A) inelastic scattering with atoms and molecules, while Tom and Paul presented posters on their work.

16. International Symposium on Molecular Beams, Nijmegen, Netherlands

    Matt, Ken and Helen Kimber attended the conference in June 2017. Helen presented a poster on her work. Ken and Matt agreed that Edinburgh would host the next conference in 2019 - watch this space!

17. Tom Luxford passes his PhD viva

    Congratulations to Tom, who successfully defended his PhD thesis in his viva on the 22^nd June 2017. Thanks to Prof. Mark Brouard for acting as external examiner.

18. EPSRC Platform Grant "Dynamical Chemical Processes" awarded

    A new EPSRC platform grant to study Gas & Solution Phase Reactions has been awarded to Prof. McKendrick (PI), Prof. Paterson, Prof. Costen, Dr Townsend & Dr Greaves. The funding will be used to retain key staff, and to deploy them in ways that are not possible with standard proposals, allowing us to enhance collaborative opportunities and conduct proof-of-concept studies in new areas. More information can be found on the EPSRC website.

19. Cassandra Rusher passes viva

    Congratulations to Cassandra who successfully defended her thesis on the 19^th of September 2016.

20. New research students arrive

    A warm welcome to the new PhD students Aisling Stewart and Joseph Leng who joined the Greaves and Costen groups on the 1^st of September 2016. We also welocme the many undergraduate and Erasmus students joining all of the research groups at the start of this semester.

21. Advanced Particle Imaging Techniques: 1986-2016 And Beyond, Telluride CO

    Matt and Tom Luxford attended the conference celebrating 30 years of ion and electron imaging techniques in chemical dynamics, held in Telluride in Colorado from 8th-12th August. Matt gave a talk on the latest results from the CMB-VMI NO(A) inelastic scattering experiment, while Tom presented a poster on his work on that experiment.

22. Matthew Costen promoted to Professor

    Congratulations to Matt who was promoted to Professor on the 1^st of August 2016!

23. ANUMOCP 2016 Newcastle

    Members of the Nahler, Costen, McKendrick and Greaves groups attended the anual northen universities meeting on chemical physics (ANUMOCP) in July at Newcastle University with a talk from David Hadden and poster presentations from Tom Sharples & Robert Bianchini.

    

24. Tom Luxford wins Y3 PhD talk prize

    Congratulations to Tom, who presented his talk 'Stereodynamics of the Rotationally Inelastic Collisions of NO(A²Σ⁺) with He and D₂' at the annual ICS Y3 PhD talks, and won one of two equal prizes for best talk. Tom is shown in the photo below accepting his prize from Prof McKendrick (acting in his role as head of the Institute of Chemical Sciences).

    

25. Maria Tesa Serrate passes her viva

    Congratulations to Maria, who successfully defended her thesis on 15^th April.

26. Dr Townsend gives invited conference talk.

    The talk, "Time-Resolved Photoelectron Imaging as a Probe of UV Relaxation Dynamics", was presented at the 2^nd COST XLIC Working Group 3 Meeting - Control of Chemical Reactivity at Queen's University Belfast.

27. Dr Costen & Prof. McKendrick visit Montana State University, USA

    Researchers from the Costen & McKendrick groups visit Montana State for a meeting of their collaborative project partners Tim Minton (Montana State University, USA) and George Schatz (Northwestern, USA), who are funded by a parallel grant from NSF.

28. We welcome new arrival Dr Nikoleta Kotsina.

    Nikoleta will be working on the Tuneable VUV Light Generation Project with the Townsend group.

29. Dr Townsend publishes results of international collaboration with leading Danish group.

    The paper, on "The effects of symmetry and rigidity on non-adiabatic dynamics in tertiary amines: a time-resolved photoelectron velocity-map imaging study of the cage-amine ABCO" was published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. The paper & further details can be found here: 10.1039/C5CP07910A.

30. Prof. McKendrick receives Chemical Dynamics Award at SDG 2016

    Former Faraday division president Prof. Mike Ashfold FRS presented Prof. McKendrick with the Chemical Dynamics Award medal at the Spectroscopy & Dynamics Group meeting at Warwick University. The award was presented before Prof. McKendrick delivered his first award lecture to the SDG audience.

    

31. Spectroscopy & Dynamics Group meeting 2016

    Many chemical dynamics researchers attended the SDG (a special interest group of the RSC) meeting and presented their work.

32. Prof. Paterson & Dr Townsend publish results of collaborative study in Chemical Science.

    Their work on "The role of novel Rydberg-valence behaviour in the non-adiabatic dynamics of tertiary aliphatic amines" studied using time-resolved photoelectron imaging experiments supported by extensive theoretical calculations, was published in the prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry journal Chemical Science. The paper can be found using its doi: 10.1039/C5SC03616J.

33. New PhD positions available

    New PhD positions are available in Chemical Dyanamics, more details can be found here.

34. Dr Costen wins new EPSRC grant

    Reactive Scattering Dynamics at the Gas-Liquid Interface: Bridging the Gap between the Gas-Phase and Solution, is a collaborative project with the computational group of Dr David Glowacki at the University of Bristol. More details can be found on the EPSRC website.

35. Prof. McKendrick wins RSC 2015 Chemical Dynamics Award

    Awarded for the development of novel methods to study elementary reactions and collisional energy transfer in the gas phase and at the gas-liquid interface. More details can be found on the Heriot-Watt main site, and on the Royal Society of Chemistry awards site.