10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’

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Materials Horizons 10th anniversary Community Spotlight; Meet some more of our esteemed Advisory Board Members!

11 Dec 2023

Introducing the Materials Horizons Advisory Board – Part 3.

This year we are pleased to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Materials Horizons. We are so grateful to our fantastic community of authors, reviewers, Board members and readers and wanted to showcase just some of them in a series of ‘Community Spotlight’ blog articles.

In this ‘Community Spotlight’, we feature some more of the Advisory Board members who have supported Materials Horizons over the years. We have asked them what they like most about being on the journal’s Advisory Boards, about their recent publications and about their own insights into the future of materials chemistry. Check out their interview responses and related articles below.

Nan Zhang, Advisory Board Member

Hunan University, China

Nan Zhang is now a professor in the College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan University. Her main research interests include the design and optical properties of metal-based composites for photocatalytic applications and their mechanism investigations

What does it mean to you to join the Advisory Board of Materials Horizons?

“Joining the Advisory Board of Materials Horizons is an opportunity to share my expertise and knowledge to a global community of experts in the area of materials science. It could also provide me with the chance to collaborate with other like-minded individuals and make a meaningful impact on the future of materials chemistry. Additionally, being a part of the Advisory Board of Materials Horizons could offer opportunities for networking and professional development, as well as exposure to new ideas and perspectives.”

What in your field are you most excited about?

“Regulation of the optical properties of metal nanostructures is an important aspect of photocatalysis, as it can significantly affect the efficiency and selectivity of photocatalytic reactions, which is one of my research interests. To regulate the optical properties of metal nanostructures in photocatalytic systems, we employ various techniques such as surface engineering, material synthesis, and optoelectronic design.”

Why do you feel that researchers should choose to publish their work in Materials Horizons?

“Materials Horizons is well-suited for publishing work that explores the properties, applications, and development of new materials. Materials Horizons has a large and diverse readership, including researchers, students, and industry professionals in the field of materials chemistry. This indicates that authors who publish their work in the journal can reach a wide audience and engage with other experts in the field. Moreover, Materials Horizons has a dedicated team of experienced editors who provide thorough and constructive feedback to authors throughout the publication process, facilitating authors to benefit from expert support and guidance in improving their research and preparing it for publication.”

Check out some of Nan Zhang’s latest research here:

A study on the role of plasmonic Ti3C2Tx MXene in enhancing photoredox catalysis
Guanshun Xie, Chuang Han, Fei Song, Yisong Zhu,a Xuanyu Wang, Jialin Wang, Zhenjun Wu, Xiuqiang Xie and Nan Zhang.

Nanoscale, 2022,14, 18010-18021. DOI: 10.1039/D2NR05983E

Electrostatically confined Bi/Ti3C2Tx on a sponge as an easily recyclable and durable catalyst for the reductive transformation of nitroarenes

Changqiang Yu, Linfen Peng, Yisong Zhu, Guanshun Xie, Zhenjun Wu, Xiuqiang Xie and Nan Zhang
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2021,9, 19847-19853. DOI: 10.1039/D1TA02736K

Rising from the horizon: three-dimensional functional architectures assembled with MXene nanosheets

Fei Song, Guohao Li, Yisong Zhu, Zhenjun Wu, Xiuqiang Xie and Nan Zhang
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020,8, 18538-18559. DOI: 10.1039/D0TA06222G

Vincent Rotello, Advisory Board Member

University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

Vincent Rotello is the Charles A. Goessmann Professor of Chemistry and a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1985 from Illinois Institute of Technology, and his Ph. D. in 1990 in Chemistry from Yale University. He was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1990-1993, and joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in 1993. He has been the recipient of the NSF CAREER and Cottrell Scholar awards, as well as the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, the Sloan Fellowships. He has received the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award in 2023, in 2016 he was awarded the Transformational Research and Excellence in Education Award presented by Research Corporation, the Bioorganic Lectureship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), the Australian Nanotechnology Network Traveling Fellowship, the Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship for Distinguished Researchers. (2016) and the Langmuir Lectureship (2010). He is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and of the Royal Society of Chemistry (U.K.). He is also recognized in 2014, 2015, 2018-2022 by Thomson Reuters/Clarivate as “Highly Cited Researcher”

His research program focuses on using synthetic organic chemistry to engineer the interface between the synthetic and biological worlds, and spans the areas of devices, polymers, and nanotechnology/bionanotechnology, with over 650 peer-reviewed papers published to date. He is actively involved in the area of bionanotechnology, and his research includes programs in delivery, imaging, diagnostics and nanotoxicology.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

“I really enjoy watching MH grow and mature. I was around when the concept for MH was developed, and was involved in the brainstorming that identified a new and interesting name with “materials” in the title–not an insignificant challenge! I have been engaged with the journal all through the process of the first issue, the first impact factor, and watching the reputation (and IF) of the journal take its place in the forefront of materials science.”

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

“MH is amongst my very favourite places to publish, and we’re always proud when one of our papers is accepted. The journal features an excellent combination high impact and rigor, traits that are increasingly becoming difficult to find in one place. “

Check out some of Vince Rotello’s latest research here:

Antimicrobial polymer-siRNA polyplexes as a dual-mode platform for the treatment of wound biofilm infections

Taewon Jeon, Jessa Marie V. Makabenta, Jungmi Park, Ahmed Nabawy, Yagiz Anil Cicek, Sarah S. Mirza, Janelle Welton, Muhammad Aamir Hassan, Rui Huang, Jesse Mager and Vincent M. Rotello
Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 5500-5507. DOI: 10.1039/D3MH01108A

Selective treatment of intracellular bacterial infections using host cell-targeted bioorthogonal nanozymes

Joseph Hardie, Jessa Marie Makabenta, Aarohi Gupta, Rui Huang, Roberto Cao-Milán, Ritabrita Goswami, Xianzhi Zhang, Parvati Abdulpurkar, Michelle E. Farkas and Vincent M. Rotello
Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 1489-1494. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH02042K

Erythrocyte-mediated delivery of bioorthogonal nanozymes for selective targeting of bacterial infections

Akash Gupta, Riddha Das, Jessa Marie Makabenta, Aarohi Gupta, Xianzhi Zhang, Taewon Jeon, Rui Huang, Yuanchang Liu, Sanjana Gopalakrishnan, Roberto-Cao Milána and Vincent M. Rotello

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 3424-3431. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH01408K

Aldo Zarbin, Advisory Board Member

Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Brazil

Aldo José Gorgatti Zarbin is graduated (1990), Master (1993) and PhD (1997) in Chemistry. He is full professor at Department of Chemistry of Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), in Brazil. Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), former President of the Brazilian Chemical Society (2016-2018), permanent member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and coordinator of the National Institute of Science and Technology of Nanomaterials for Life (INCT NanoVida). His main scientific interests are the synthesis, characterization, study of properties and applications of different nanomaterials, as carbon nanotubes, graphene, 2D-materials, metal nanoparticles and conducting polymer-based nanocomposites; their processing as thin films and their application in energy (batteries, supercapacitor, photovoltaics, electrochromic), sensors and catalysis.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

“First of all it is a great honor being member of the Advisory Board of this prestigious Journal. Personally, it represents the recognition of the quality of the science that I have been developing, which is very significant. I really like the contact with the people in the editorial office, who are always very kind, and being able to share opinions and give reports on the high quality articles that are submitted to the journal. It is a privilege to read in advance the best that has been produced in this fascinating area of knowledge.”

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

“Materials chemistry is the pathway to solve some of the major problems that currently afflict us. I see materials chemistry concerning about the social relevance of science as a whole, improving the welfare of the people, aiming sustainability and looking for ways to reduce the poverty and the social inequality. For example, I see a strong a development on the synthesis and processing of novel (or old ones with a new guise) materials to improve the efficiency of processes such as CO2 capture and conversion, solar photovoltaic conversion, green hydrogen generation, high-capacity batteries, aqueous-environment operating devices, etc; materials for health (implants, drug-deliver, artificial skin); materials to detoxify the environment; materials to make potable water, etc.”

Some of Aldo Zarbin’s latest research can be found here:

A tunable color palette of electrochromic materials achieved through an ingenious stacking of ordinary conducting polymers

Victor H. R. Souza, Ariane Schmidt and Aldo J. G. Zarbin
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 18853-18861. DOI: 10.1039/D3TA02860G

Prussian blue and its analogues as functional template materials: control of derived structure compositions and morphologies

Behnoosh Bornamehr, Volker Presser, Aldo J. G. Zarbin, Yusuke Yamauchi and Samantha Husmann
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 10473-10492. DOI: 10.1039/D2TA09501G

Nanoarchitected graphene/copper oxide nanoparticles/MoS2 ternary thin films as highly efficient electrodes for aqueous sodium-ion batteries

Maria K. Ramos, Gustavo Martins, Luiz H. Marcolino-Junior, Márcio F. Bergamini, Marcela M. Oliveira and Aldo J. G. Zarbin

Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 5521-5537. DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00982C

Uttam Manna, Advisory Board Member

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India

Uttam Manna, Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), is currently an associate professor at Department of Chemistry—and affiliated with Centre for Nanotechnology and Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Science and Technology in Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IITG). He completed his Integrated PhD from IISc Bangalore in 2011. He pursued his post-doctoral research from University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. He is recognized as an emerging investigator by Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2018), Chemical Communications (2020), Nanoscale (2021) and Chemical Society Reviews (2022). In 2023, Chemical Communications journal also recognized him as a pioneering investigator. He received the CRSI Bronze Medal for the year 2023. He is also a recipient of the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers in 2021.

His research team is interested in designing functional and durable coatings embedded with bio-inspired wettability through the strategic association of robust and facile chemical approaches for energy, environment and health related different applications—including efficient oil/water separation, improving performance of water splitting, self-cleaning, chemical sensing, programmed release of small molecule, anticounterfeiting, no-loss liquid transport, strain sensing, joule heating etc.

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

“I found Materials Horizons is one of the finest journals to publish research related to material chemistry—as this journal publishes research works on diverse topics of material chemistry. I found researchers from various scientific and engineering backgrounds publishing their exciting and fresh research ideas in this journal. Thus, this journal is widely recognized by the community of material chemistry. I would definitely mention here that the ‘New Concepts’ section of the article in the journal, really helps to quickly recognize the novelty and design principle of the published research works. This journal is a perfect home for seminal research works on materials chemistry.”

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

“In the published communication (Mater. Horiz., 2023, 10, 2204), we have introduced a self-cleanable multilevel anticounterfeiting interface through covalent chemical modulation of physically unclonable and chemically reactive coating. We have spatially selectively modulated a dual chemically reactive coating—following 1,4-conjugate addition reaction and Schiff-base reaction to achieve an extremely water repellent pattern interface embedded with distinct water adhesion property and fluorescence property. The selective chemical modulation controls the fraction of contact area between water and chemically modified interface. Eventually this principle provided a facile basis to naked-eye visualization of hidden patterns on water exposure—and it disappears immediately after removal of the pattern interface from water exposure.”

Read some of Uttam Manna’s research here:

Design of a self-cleanable multilevel anticounterfeiting interface through covalent chemical modulation

Manideepa Dhar, Ufuoma I. Kara, Supriya Das, Yang Xu, Sohini Mandal, Robert L. Dupont, Eric C. Boerner, Boyuan Chen, Yuxing Yao, Xiaoguang Wang and Uttam Manna

Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 2204-2214. DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00180F

Dually reactive multilayer coatings enable orthogonal manipulation of underwater superoleophobicity and oil adhesion via post-functionalization

Angana Borbora, Robert L. Dupont, Yang Xu, Xiaoguang Wang and Uttam Manna
Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 991-1001. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH01598B

Abrasion tolerant, non-stretchable and super-water-repellent conductive & ultrasensitive pattern for identifying slow, fast, weak and strong human motions under diverse conditions

Supriya Das, Rajan Singh, Avijit Das, Sudipta Bag, Roy P. Paily and Uttam Manna
Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 2851-2858. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH01071A

Shannon Yee, Advisory Board Member

Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

Dr. Shannon Yee is an Associate Professor at the G.W.W. School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Yee joined Georgia Tech in 2014 directly from his PhD at the University of California Berkeley. Amid his studies, he joined the US. Dept. of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) during its inaugural year as the first ARPA-E Fellow. Dr. Yee completed his MS in Nuclear Engineering in 2008 and his BS in Mechanical Engineering in 2007, both from The Ohio State University. In 2008, he was awarded a prestigious Hertz Fellowship. In 2015, Dr. Yee was selected for an AFOSR Young Investigator Award to develop polymer thermoelectrics. Dr. Yee is the recipient of the 2017 American Society of Mechanical Engineering Pi-Tau-Sigma Gold Medal award for “outstanding contributions to the field of Mechanical Engineering in the first decade of one’s career.” In 2019, Shannon was selected for an ONR Young Investigator Award to develop polymer thermal switches. Most recently, Dr. Yee has been directing the Generation 2 Reinvent the Toilet (G2RT) program, and was recognized as one of Bill Gate’s Heroes in the Field in 2021. Additionally, he has been instrumental at Georgia Tech is helping to establish The New York Climate Exchange and is currently serving as the co-chair for Research, Technology, and Commercialization efforts, coordinating a global community of academic, corporate, and non-profit institutions to address climate change.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

“I enjoy connecting with research colleagues and supporting the dissemination of knowledge through the Materials Horizons publication. “

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

“Materials Horizons is unique. It provides a platform to share materials chemistry developments that enable new technologies.“

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

“I see materials chemistry evolving to embrace the opportunity of providing designer materials with custom electronic, thermal, optical, and mechanical properties.”

In your opinion, how could members of the community be more involved with the journal?

“Members of the materials chemistry community can be more involved with the journal through engaging in the publication discourse.”

Some of Shannon Yee’s latest research can be found here:

Effects of film thickness on electrochemical properties of nanoscale polyethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) thin films grown by oxidative molecular layer deposition (oMLD)

Katrina G. Brathwaite, Quinton K. Wyatt, Amalie Atassi, Shawn A. Gregory, Eric Throm, David Stalla, Shannon K. Yee, Mark D. Losego and Matthias J. Young
Nanoscale, 2023,15, 6187-6200. DOI: 10.1039/D3NR00708A

Inducing planarity in redox-active conjugated polymers with solubilizing 3,6-dialkoxy-thieno[3,2-b]thiophenes (DOTTs) for redox and solid-state conductivity applications

Sandra L. Pittelli, Shawn A. Gregory, James F. Ponder, Jr, Shannon K. Yee and John R. Reynolds
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2020,8, 7463-7475. DOI: 10.1039/D0TC00914H

Electron transport in a sequentially doped naphthalene diimide polymer

Khaled Al Kurdi, Shawn A. Gregory, Samik Jhulki, Maxwell Conte, Stephen Barlow, Shannon K. Yee and Seth R. Marder
Mater. Adv., 2020,1, 1829-1834. DOI: 10.1039/D0MA00406E

David Mecerreyes, Advisory Board Member

University of the Basque Country, Spain

Graduated from the University of the Basque Country in 1994. He obtained the Ph.D. degree in Polymer Chemistry under de supervision of Dr. Robert Jèrôme in 1998 from University of Liege (Belgium). He carried out a post-doctoral at IBM Almaden Research Center and Stanford University (USA) working in the team of Dr. James L. Hedrick and Prof. Craig Hawker. In 2001 he joined CIDETEC where he was in charge of the Nanomaterials Unit. In January 2011, he got an Ikerbasque Research Professorship at POLYMAT/University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

Prof. David Mecerreyes is a creative polymer chemist and has pioneered important topics in polymer and materials science such as ring-opening polymerization (PhD times), polymer brushes and single-chain nanoparticles (post-doc times), porous PBI proton conducting membranes, poly(ionic liquid)s and polymer electrolytes for batteries (last years). He has published more than 300 scientific articles in polymer, chemistry and materials journals and delivered more than 70 invited lectures around the world.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

“To me it is a honor and very prestigious to be part of the Advisory Board. I love the opportunity to directly participate in the development of the journal and contribute with our best articles coming from our group as well as to have a close view of the current advances in materials science and applications.”

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

“I believe Materials Horizons is “the place” to publish impactful and breakthrough articles. In particular, articles where new materials chemistry directions and concepts are demonstrated.”

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

“I see that research in polymers and materials chemistry will be more and more important in the next 10 years. The research interests will be related to the societal needs in areas such as health, energy and environment. I see an evolution of the current research topics in circular economy, sustainability of materials. I believe that the performance and the applications of the materials will be even more important factor in the future.“

In your opinion, how could members of the community be more involved with the journal?

“It is a simple but difficult question to answer. I guess that the members of the community should see the journal present and close to them and in an interactive way through congress participation as well as the social media.”

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

“We recently published an article entitled Direct ink writing of PEDOT eutectogels as substrate-free dry electrodes for electromyography DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00310H. Here we showed the development of mixed ionic electronic conductive materials based on Deep eutectic solvents DES and poly(3,4 ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). We called this new materials eutectogels which are biocompatible, cost-effective, easy to make and show high ionic and electronic conductivity values.
Due to the rheological properties of these eutectogels we showed the direct printing of electrodes for electrophysiology, called eutectic-tattoos (Eutecta2). The obtained Eutecta2 electrodes were self-standing, stable after drying, and reusable, as well as 3D printable in custom shapes.”

Check out some of David Mecerreyes’ latest research here:

Direct ink writing of PEDOT eutectogels as substrate-free dry electrodes for electromyography

Ana Aguzin, Antonio Dominguez-Alfaro, Miryam Criado-Gonzalez, Santiago Velasco-Bosom, Matías L. Picchio, Nerea Casado, Eleni Mitoudi-Vagourdi, Roque J. Minari, George G. Malliaras and David Mecerreyes
Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 2516-2524. DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00310H

Dual redox-active porous polyimides as high performance and versatile electrode material for next-generation batteries

Nicolas Goujon, Marianne Lahnsteiner, Daniel A. Cerrón-Infantes, Hipassia M. Moura, Daniele Mantione, Miriam M. Unterlass and David Mecerreyes
Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 967-976. DOI: 10.1039/D2MH01335E

Self-healable dynamic poly(urea-urethane) gel electrolyte for lithium batteries

Fermin Elizalde, Julia Amici, Sabrina Trano, Giulia Vozzolo, Robert Aguirresarobe, Daniele Versaci, Silvia Bodoardo, David Mecerreyes, Haritz Sardon and Federico Bella

J.Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 12588-12596. DOI: 10.1039/D2TA02239G

We hope you have enjoyed meeting our Advisory board members.

Or to read more of our community spotlight blog, return to the home page here

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Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 3

21 Nov 2023

Introducing Materials Horizons’ Emerging Investigators 2022.

In our fifth ‘Community Spotlight’, we feature some of our past ‘Emerging Investigators’ who have contributed their outstanding research to Materials Horizons.

Our Emerging Investigators series highlights early career scientists who have excelled in their field and work to provide quality research and communications in order to contribute to the constant evolution of chemical sciences. We asked some of our past Emerging Investigators about their experience as up-and-coming researchers and how their work has developed from early career stage to now. Check out their interview responses below.

Dr. Filip Podjaski, Emerging Investigator 2022

Imperial Collage London, UK

“My parents immigrated from Poland to Germany when I was a child. I grew up bilingually, which was very helpful to learn foreign languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian) and to get in touch with different cultures and mindsets. Since adolescence I was fascinated by the natural sciences and what technologies they enable. Consequently, I studied physics, at the University of Göttingen (D) and in Lyon (FR) with a focus on material properties and energy related applications.

During my PhD in the Nanochemistry department (Prof. Lotsch) at the MPI for Solid State Research (D) and at EPFL (CH), I broadened my horizons in physical chemistry and worked on photocatalysis and electrocatalysis for green hydrogen production as well as on organic materials combining light absorption and battery like energy storage intrinsically – a new and promising technology still fascinating me. I hence stayed at MPI as postdoc and became group leader to drive its development for 3 more years. Research placements at UC Santa Barbara, USA (Prof. Seshadri) and in the Institute of Material Science Seville, ES (Prof. Míguez) strongly enriched me.

Since August 2022, I am a UKRI Research Fellow in the group of Prof. James Durrant, Imperial College London (UK), where I deepen my knowledge in probing fundamental photophysical properties of light driven organic semiconductors on different time scales to better understand and tailor their function for solar fuel production.

My research interests are related to energy conversion applications and tailored material property modifications, which can be driven by light or electricity. They span over the disciplines of physics and chemistry, and partially affect biomedical applications.

Being concerned by increasing environmental challenges, I focus on fundamental processes of electrocatalytic and photocatalytic renewable fuel synthesis, mostly for green hydrogen production. Especially complex and organic based semiconductor systems fascinate me in this context, since they are tailorable bottom-up in principle in their structure and function. But there is much to discover about their photophysical properties and its coupling to performance. At Imperial College London, I currently investigate which chemical adaptations are helpful to make organic photocatalysts work efficiently in more natural environments, and not only in ultra-pure lab conditions.

Photocharging materials and resulting property modification effects are my other main research interest. Such a function typically relies on ionic interactions and goes in hand with energy and information storage. But relatively little is known about this growing field. I am keen to explore their thermodynamic and kinetic property requirements, to establish efficient structure-property relationships and new technological applications for such novel and adaptive materials. Examples for photocharging materials’ applications I recently showed with colleagues are solar batteries that enable to use renewable electricity on demand, or photo-memristive sensors that intrinsically store concentration information of analytes they can interact with in biological contexts. Light-driven micro-robotics I studied with colleagues from MPI-IS (Prof. Sitti) in biological contexts are another practical example. Remote charging or propulsion by light, as well as its use for local sensing and drug delivery has exciting potential. And if such materials and devices were tailored from organic semiconductors, more technology could become fully green and sustainable.”

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“Primary inspiration probably came from good teachers at school (math, physics, chemistry). I chose a career in applied natural sciences for three reasons: (i) personal curiosity for profound understanding of physics and chemistry and how this translates into technology, (ii) for altruistic reasons – I wanted to contribute something good, new and lasting to our society by research and development, and (iii) because of my creativity and joy in working with different people, which in my opinion is best applied in natural sciences and with academic freedom. Research on renewable energy conversion and sustainable fuel production (photocatalysis, electrocatalysis) was my first choice due to its obvious immediate need, and because it requires interdisciplinary knowledge I wanted to develop. My enthusiastic PhD supervisors Prof. Bettina Lotsch and Prof. Anna Fontcubetra i Morral, as well as my current host and mentor Prof. James Durrant further inspired me as people who take a lot of joy and personal energy from driving fundamental research and understanding. Further inspiration comes from amazing community feedback on the relatively new topic of photocharging materials. I want to focus even more on it in future – for its relevance to energy supply technology and its broad applicability beyond (see next question). The interdisciplinary and creative research required here is also a beautiful challenge and inspiration to me.”

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“I think the relatively young research area of photocharging materials is particularly exciting and promising. Combing the function of solar cells and batteries in single bifunctional materials is what I feel is highly demanded in times of climate change and (potential) conflicts arising for access to natural resources. However, photo-battery concepts relying on such bifunctional materials are still scarce, have very limited efficiencies and require much more research. Photocharging effects can in principle also affects materials used for photoelectrochemistry or photocatalysis, which become more efficient due to doping or trap passivation going in hand with photo-induced charge accumulation. In parallel, structural and physical or chemical material properties can be modified by photocharging, akin to photo-switches. Their analysis can be used for sensing applications. Related research areas are the just emerging optoionics, where light induces changes in ionic concentrations and conductivity, thereby potentially improving material performance. Since photocharging can also be seen as memristive effect that captures light driven processes over time, its use for information processing is also foreseeable. Memristors as logical circuit elements are also being discussed for so called neuromorphic computing and information processing applications that could well interface with next generation IT or biomedical applications. I would be happy to help developing these areas. It represents a complex field bridging semiconductor physics, battery research, electrochemistry, photocatalysis and engineering, which are rarely combined. So little people have a holistic view and understanding. But I hope that it will change soon and that more and more people will follow up.

In terms of solar fuel production, I think that hydrogen is obviously of highest relevance. Especially when it comes to its generation by cost-efficient organic based materials and in more natural conditions, which is rarely the case, more research is needed. We need hydrogen not only as energy carrier, but also for other (photo)synthetic process such as syngas and ammonia production. In line with this, I am highly convinced of the promise in nitrogen reduction research, since ammonia is one of the products. Besides being a convenient, safe and high energy density fuel, it is also required for many industrialized processes and fertilizer synthesis, while already having a good distribution infrastructure.”

Read Filip’s featured Materials Horizons article here:

Photomemristive sensing via charge storage in 2D carbon nitrides.

Andreas Gouder, Alberto Jiménez-Solano, Nella M. Vargas-Barbosa, Filip Podjaski and Bettina V. Lotsch.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 1866-1877. DOI: 10.1039/D2MH00069E

Dr Jie Jang, Emerging Investigator 2022

Central South University, China

Jie Jiang is an Associate Professor of School of Physics and Electronics at Central South University. He obtained the B.E. degree (2007), M.E. degree (2009), and the Ph.D. degree (2012) from Hunan University. He was a Post-doctoral Fellow in Nanyang Technological University (2012-2013 in Singapore) and Auburn University (2014-2015 in USA), respectively. His research interests focus on neuromorphic photoelectric hybrid devices based on thin-film oxide and 2D semiconductor materials. He is the Youth Editor in Nano-Micro Letters, Science China-Materials, Brain-X, International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing. He has published as first author/corresponding author about 60 papers which are often highlighted by NPG Asia Materials, Material Views-China, X-MOL, etc.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“When I was young, I was very interested in nature. When I grew up, I was more interested in the mathematics. However, I wanted to start my research career facing modern industry. Therefore, my current research is focused on the advanced semiconductor devices, especially for the neuromorphic intelligent devices.”

How would you summarise the research which lead to your recognition as an Emerging Investigator for Materials Horizons?

“I think the polarization light detector has seen growing attention. However, my research demonstrates that it can also extended to be used in the polarization-sensitive neuromorphic computing which has been never reported. It may provide a promising opportunity for the next-generation of intelligent optoelectronics.”

Since becoming an Emerging Investigator, how do you feel your research has developed over time?

“I am very honored to be an Emerging Investigator. It seems that my research has gone well since.”

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“I think the chip-integrated neuromorphic electronics and polarization-perceptual neuromorphic optoelectronics are two exciting points in my research field.”

What advice would you give to aspiring scientists who hope to make a significant impact in their respective fields?

“The interest is most important thing. The research should also be guided toward the direction which is most different from others.”

What are some of the main challenges or obstacles you have encountered while conducting your research, and how have you overcome them?

“Sometimes my lab doesn’t have the equipment we need. Therefore, we must either get help from others or do the work that we can.”

Read Dr Jang’s featured Materials Horizons article here:

Polarization-perceptual anisotropic two-dimensional ReS2 neuro-transistor with reconfigurable neuromorphic vision.

Dingdong Xie, Kai Yin, Zhong-Jian Yang, Han Huang, Xiaohui Li, Zhiwen Shu, Huigao Duan, Jun He and Jie Jiang.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 1448-1459. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH02036F

Dr Mohammad Mirkhalaf, Emerging Investigator 2022

Queensland University, Australia.

Mohammad Mirkhalaf is a Lecturer and ARC DECRA fellow at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has obtained his PhD from McGill University, Master’s from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and Bachelor’s from Isfahan University of Technology (IUT). After finishing PhD in 2015, he joined the National Research Council of Canada as a postdoctoral fellow working closely with his previous lab at McGill till August 2018 when he joined the University of Sydney. He joined QUT in Jan 2022. His research is on tailoring materials’ internal architecture to achieve properties and functionalities beyond those of constituents.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“We are all part of nature. After all, we can be perceived as live materials with intelligence. Doing research in natural and bioinspired materials has been perhaps a way for me to try to understand nature and, as such, human better.”

How would you summarise the research which lead to your recognition as an Emerging Investigator for Materials Horizons?

“Besides research, recognition is a result of being with supportive and understanding people. Let us pay our deepest respect to the people who contribute to providing supportive environments for their younger (and usually less experienced) colleagues.

In terms of research, whatever is triggered by scientific curiosity is exciting: enthusiasm to understand something better or to develop something new or more efficient brings the capacity to do so. We should just not forget that it takes time and continuous effort. I think the research that was kindly highlighted in the emerging investigator series was driven by the excitement to find a way to form ceramics into complex shapes using an efficient and relatively easy pathway.“

Since becoming an Emerging Investigator, how do you feel your research has developed over time?

“I think trust is a fundamental element in progress. Trust in your ability to do something but also trust in people who are there to help you. I think being featured as an emerging investigator strengthened both elements (of trust) in me. Thanks for the opportunity.”

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“We do certain things to pay our bills and have a protective roof. But beyond that, whatever we do should be responsibly done for the next generations. They are our continuation. With their being is our being. So in the future, I will aim to find ways to perform my research (which is on developing new materials and architectures) sustainably from nature, for nature (all beings), to nature.

We are going to lack resources and so are in search of life/resources on other planets. Much research, including on new materials, is channelled towards this goal. The question is: if in this search for life in other planets, we are harming our own earth, aren’t we defeating the purpose? We perhaps need to first keep our mother earth as intact as possible through sustainable technologies and then satisfy our other curiosities based on this principle of sustainability. We (scientists and engineers) can play a major role here. Other areas that interest me currently are using engineering mechanisms to reversibly and drastically tailor the internal architecture of materials, and the ethical aspects of live materials and artificial intelligence.”

What advice would you give to aspiring scientists who hope to make a significant impact in their respective fields?

“I am still in the early- to-mid stages of my career, so I am not sure if I am eligible to answer this question. But I am happy to have a discussion on this. I guess one important aspect is to go to the core of the problem. Every problem has a surface, but the beauty lies within the deeper layers. For example, a few hundred years ago, a designer could think of this problem: how thick the feet of a wooden chair should be to resist one’s weight? Or going to deeper layers, one could ask: what governs the deformation and failure of the chair’s feet? How can we prevent excessive deformation/failure? Are these governing rules the same for all materials? Trying to answer the latter set of questions has led to significant contributions to the mechanics of materials. Answering the former question would result in a chair on which people could sit. Both are valuable but satisfy different desires.

I think another key is trust as we discussed. There are elite people in academia who know much more than early career researchers about academic progress/potential. Being in touch with these people and trusting them brings stability and focus to a curious soul.”

What are some of the main challenges or obstacles you have encountered while conducting your research, and how have you overcome them?

“Our biggest enemy lies within us. In search of truth, one should be truthful. I must admit it might be hard for a scientific mind to carry the burden of a societal construction and politics that tend to be quite good at (sometimes) bending the truth. But we (humans) have made significant progress in discovering the essence of things properly, and I think we will get better. Intellectuals, many of whom work in academia (including my current and previous mentors), have taught us the way to scientific discoveries: reading/understanding the literature, discussing it, accepting criticisms and strong arguments even though they go against our thoughts, fact-checking, and readiness to reconstruct thoughts if needed. These are the principles I try to follow to tackle challenges. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss thoughts.”

Read Mohammad’s featured Materials Horizons article here:

Rationally-designed self-shaped ceramics through heterogeneous green body compositions.

Zizhen Ding, Hala Zreiqatbc and Mohammad Mirkhalaf.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 2762-2772. DOI: 10.1039/D2MH00785A

Dr Kai Wang, Emerging Investigator 2022

Soochow University, China

Kai Wang received his BSc degree from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University in 2012, and received his PhD degree from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017. Then, he carried out postdoctoral research at the Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University. Now, he is an associate professor at Soochow University. His research interest mainly focuses on high-performance organic optoelectronic materials and their device applications.

How would you summarise the research which lead to your recognition as an Emerging Investigator for Materials Horizons?

“The purpose of the research is to address fundamental questions regarding the spectral broadening and concentration quenching in solid-state multiple resonance (MR) type thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) systems. Previous studies often overlooked or briefly mentioned these issues as they focused primarily on developing new materials. However, these issues are crucial in understanding the behaviour of MR-TADF systems in solid states. Our research is the first to comprehensively investigate and provide answers to these general questions. We have determined that spectral broadening is caused by the formation of excimers resulting from π-π interactions, while concentration quenching is a result of triplet exciton annihilation. These findings are essential for a deeper understanding of the behaviour of MR-TADF systems.”

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“In my view, the emerging category of materials known as multiple resonance (MR) emitters and their associated device applications are highly promising in the realm of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). These materials have the ability to achieve remarkably efficient narrowband emission, surpassing even that of inorganic systems. This challenges our existing understanding of organic systems and allows OLEDs to remain competitive in the era of ultrahigh definition displays. Moreover, they hold significant potential for use in organic laser diodes, a shared aspiration among researchers in the field of organic optoelectronics.”

Read Kai Wang’s featured Materials Horizons article here:

Distinguishing the respective determining factors for spectral broadening and concentration quenching in multiple resonance type TADF emitter systems.

Feng Huang, Xiao-Chun Fan, Ying-Chun Cheng, Hao Wu, Yi-Zhong Shi, Jia Yu, Kai Wang, Chun-Sing Lee and Xiao-Hong Zhang.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 2226-2232. DOI: 10.1039/D2MH00511E

We hope you enjoy reading these interviews from our Emerging Investigators. You can find all our past Emerging investigator editorials and featured articles here:

Emerging Investigators 2020/2021

Emerging Investigators 2022/2023

Or to read more of our community spotlight blog, return to the home page here

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Materials Horizons Community Spotlight – Celebrating ten years of insight and impact with our scientific collaborators

21 Nov 2023

Welcome to the Materials Horizons Community Spotlight

To celebrate our wonderful community of authors, reviewers, and board members we would like to introduce you to them, their roles in the community and their current research through our Community Spotlight blog series. This special series include some of the people who have, over the past 10 years, helped to shape and transform Materials Horizons into the cutting edge, insightful and impactful journal that it is today.

This collection of blog posts started in July 2023 with the first introduction to our esteemed Advisory Board. Each month since we have followed this with introductions to some of our very first Materials Horizons Emerging Investigators from 2020 and 2021 and a selection of our nominated Outstanding Reviewers from past years.

Read the first of the Community spotlight series here:

Materials Horizons Advisory Board

Meet the Advisory Board Part 1

Meet the Advisory Board Part 2

Meet the Advisory Board part 3

Read the second edition of the Community spotlight series here:

Materials Horizons Emerging Investigators

Introducing our Emerging Investigators – Part 1

Introducing our Emerging Investigators – Part 2

Introducing our Emerging Investigators – Part 3

Finally in our third edition of the series:

Materials Horizons Outstanding Reviewers

Meet some of our Outstanding Reviewers

We would like to offer a heart felt thank you to all our scientific community who play a role in shaping Materials Horizons into the successful journal that it is today. We hope you enjoy reading more about all of these fantastic people and keep your eyes peeled for more additions to the Community Spotlight series!

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Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’. Meet more of our esteemed Advisory Board Members!

26 Oct 2023

Introducing the Materials Horizons Advisory Board – Part 2.

Christopher Bettinger, Advisory Board Member

Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Christopher Bettinger is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He directs the laboratory for Biomaterials-based Microsystems and Electronics at CMU, which designs materials and interfaces that integrate medical devices with the human body. Prof. Bettinger is also a co-inventor on several patents and Co-Founder and CTO of Ancure, an early-stage medical device incubator. Prof. Bettinger received an S.B. in Chemical Engineering, an M.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering as a Charles Stark Draper Fellow, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University in the Department of Chemical Engineering as an NIH Ruth Kirschstein Fellow.

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

‘Materials Horizons is a high-impact journal that features multidisciplinary research. The breadth of the articles is impressive and attracts a broad audience that is interested in innovative research. As an author, I am particularly impressed by the efficiency of the review process, and which translates to the ability to publish rapidly. Materials Horizons therefore is a great place to publish for quick moving fields.’

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

‘Materials chemistry underpins most of the advanced technologies of our generation ranging from RNA vaccines to clean energy to space travel. The scope and scale of the impact of the materials chemistry field is stunning. I’m personally interested in understanding how biomedical materials can help scientists and engineers interrogate and modulate organ systems such as the gastrointestinal tract.’

You can read Christopher’s latest articles in Journal of Materials Chemistry B here:

Poisson–Nernst–Planck framework for modelling ionic strain and temperature sensors.

Gaurav Balakrishnan, Jiwoo Song, Aditya S. Khair and Christopher J. Bettinger.

J.Mater. Chem. B, 2023,11, 5544-5551. DOI: 10.1039/D2TB02819K

Electrochemical-mediated gelation of catechol-bearing hydrogels based on multimodal crosslinking.

Chenchen Mou, Faisal Ali, Avishi Malaviya and Christopher J. Bettinger.

J.Mater. Chem. B, 2019,7, 1690-1696. DOI: 10.1039/C8TB02854K

Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan, Advisory Board Member

IISER Pune, India

Dr. R. Vaidhyanathan obtained his Ph.D. from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research under Prof. C. N. R. Rao and Prof. S. Natarajan. He worked as a postdoc with Prof. M. J. Rosseinsky at the University of Liverpool and as a research associate with Prof. George Shimizu at the University of Calgary. He started his independent research career as an assistant professor in IISER Pune in 2012. Currently, he is a Professor at IISER Pune. His research focuses on developing Advanced Porous Materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent-organic frameworks (COFs) and their nanocomposites for environmental and energy applications. He has published over 102 papers and has 11 patents filed from IISER Pune. He has been rewarded with several honours, including the Fellowship of Royal Society of Chemistry (2022), C.N.R. Rao Award. National Prize for research in Physical and Inorganic Chemistry (2021), Materials Research Society of India Medal (2019), Chemical Research Society of India Medal (2018), IUSSTF funding won jointly with Temple University (Chief Co-PI, 2018), Sakurai Science Program (SSP), Osaka University, Japan (2016), Best Emerging Young Scientist (Chemical Frontiers), Goa, (2017). He serves as an Associate Editor in Chemistry of Materials and as an Editorial Board Member of ACS Materials Letters and Nature Scientific Reports. He is the Advisory Board Member of Nanoscale Horizons and Materials Horizons.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

‘Excellent opportunity. Such a fantastic journal covering a whole spectrum of materials. Being an Advisory Board Member gives me the commitment and responsibility to bring visibility and promote the latest happenings and upcoming young researchers in porous materials.’

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

‘Again, among the top materials journals, the editorial and marketing teams are engaged in promoting the published articles. This is very critical for many researchers who work on topical areas. Importantly, the “concept note” for every article published in Materials Horizons provides a plain language note of the work, making it reachable to a wide scientific audience and opening collaboration opportunities.’

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

‘Nothing but top. It has become such a fantastic interdisciplinary research area. Nowadays, very little work happens within individual groups. The rapid development of technology and the excellent government support for research from many developing and almost-developed countries has expanded the capability of individual groups. Now many active groups are not ready to settle for only fundamental investigations; there is a vibrant, collaborative environment between groups leading to research in materials that is more targeted and holistic. Given this, I see Materials Chemistry inciting every field of Science and Technology.’

In your opinion, how could members of the community be more involved with the journal?

‘I see the materials journals of RSC being extremely focused and active in communicating with the members and encouraging them to contribute to specialized topics. And their attempt to invite senior researchers to nominate, support and endorse high-flying young researchers is simply superb. Keep going.’

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

‘I would not call it the most recent, but we have published an excellent work on flexible MOFs. We employed the concept of “Hard Soft Gate Control (HSGC)” which involves tuning the openness of the MOF framework by exploiting the coordination flexibility between the metal and the basic ligand by tuning the metal’s hardness. It resulted from an intense collaboration between Woo and co-workers from U Ottawa and us.’

Discover some of Ramanathan’s work across our Horizons journals here:

Imparting gas selective and pressure dependent porosity into a non-porous solid via coordination flexibility.

Shyamapada Nandi, Phil De Luna, Rahul Maity, Debanjan Chakraborty, Thomas Daff, Thomas Burns, Tom K. Woo and Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan.

Mater. Horiz., 2019,6, 1883-1891. DOI: 10.1039/c9mh00133f

Hydroxide ion-conducting viologen–bakelite organic frameworks for flexible solid-state zinc–air battery applications.

Deepak Rase, Rajith Illathvalappil, Himan Dev Singh, Pragalbh Shekhar, Liya S Leo, Debanjan Chakraborty, Sattwick Haldar, Ankita Shelke, Thalasseril G. Ajithkumarc and Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan.

Nanoscale Horiz., 2023,8, 224-234. DOI: 10.1039/d2nh00455k

Moyuan Cao, Advisory Board Member

Nankai University, China.

Dr. Moyuan Cao is currently a professor and principal investigator at school of materials science and engineering, Nankai University, China. He received his B. Eng. Degree (2010) and M. Sc. Degree (2013) in Macromolecular Science and Engineering from Zhejiang University, China. In 2016, he received Ph. D. Degree in materials sciences under the supervision of Prof. Lei Jiang at Beihang University and Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations (Tianjin, China) and Smart Sensing Interdisciplinary Science Center of Nankai University. He has published over 70 peer-review papers in Matter, Adv. Mater., Mater. Horiz., Adv. Funct. Mater., etc. His citation number is over 4600 times with an H-index of 36. He serves as Editorial member of Frontiers in Chemistry, Polymers, Chinese Chemical Letters, Transactions of Tianjin University and Advisory board member of Materials Horizons. His present scientific interests are focused on the design and the applications of bio-inspired asymmetrical interfaces for fluid manipulation, including (1) Self-propelled fluid delivery on open interfaces; (2) Bubble manipulation on hydrophobic slippery surfaces; (3) Integrated systems with fluid collecting ability.

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

‘As for the research field in next 10 years, human beings should overcome the shortage of resources including water, energy, food, etc. For example, the drinking water scarcity has influenced the millions of people in undeveloped country. In such region, the complicated equipment such as membrane systems might not be suitable due to the high cost. Therefore, the future research should focus on the drinking water production with more convenient and efficient way. Learning from nature can give us numerous ideas. Why can plants efficiently uptake clear water from mud? How did plant capture and reserve water in arid region? How can we take those inspirations to our design? If we can totally understand the biologic logic of water uptake, I believe that we can further improve the current systems for water production. What I can see is that the combination between the hierarchical structure of plants and the solar absorbing system should be a possible answer to biologic water uptake. So, in the next 10 years, the solar-assisted water production and liquid manipulation can be an important interdisciplinary topic that relating to water, energy, agriculture and integrated functional devices.’

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

‘In our recent publication in Materials Horizons (2022, 9, 1888), we have fully revealed the superior floatability of Pistia stratiotes that is a kind of aquatic plants. Compared with the traditional lotus leaf, Pistia stratiotes has improved floatability on the basis of its penetrable superhydrophobic/hydrophilic Janus structure. Even when pushed into water, Pistia can spontaneously return to its original orientation on the water surface, and the on-surface leftover water can be actively drained through its liquid channel. Inspired by this natural design, we have fabricated an interfacial tumbler with similar structure, showing an improved floatability. In addition, we have also demonstrated a micro-light-buoy based on this bioinspired floater, which can meet the requirement of floatable microdevice and on-sea signaling. In this publication, we have updated the understand of the floatability of Pistia, and then design a bioinspired structure to optimize the micro-floater. In future, the on-water or on-sea micro-devices should be a promising platform for detection, desalination, imaging, etc. Therefore, our design can also provide a method to stabilize the functional devices at air/water interface. We are interested in discovering the nature’s secrets and learning from nature’s way. ‘

Check out Muyuan’s latest Materials Horizons articles here:

Designing a slippery/superaerophobic hierarchical open channel for reliable and versatile underwater gas delivery.

Xinsheng Wang, Haoyu Bai, Zhe Li, Yaru Tian, Tianhong Zhaoa and Moyuan Cao.

Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 3351-3359. DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00898C

An interfacial floating tumbler with a penetrable structure and Janus wettability inspired by Pistia stratiotes.

Yifan Yang, Haoyu Bai, Muqian Li, Zhe Li, Xinsheng Wang, Pengwei Wang and Moyuan Cao.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 1888-1895. DOI: 10.1039/D2MH00361A

Vivian Wing Wah Yam, Advisory Board Member

The University of Hong Kong, China

Vivian W.-W. Yam obtained both her BSc (Hons) and PhD from The University of Hong Kong, and is currently the Philip Wong Wilson Wong Professor in Chemistry and Energy and Chair Professor of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong. She was elected to Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, International Member (Foreign Associate) of US National Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of Academia Europaea, Fellow of TWAS and Founding Member of Hong Kong Academy of Sciences. She was Laureate of the 2011 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award. She has received a number of awards, including the Josef Michl ACS Award in Photochemistry, RSC Centenary Medal, RSC Ludwig Mond Award, Porter Medal, Bailar Medal, I-APS Presidential Award, FACS Foundation Lectureship Award, APA Masuhara Lectureship Award, JPA Honda-Fujishima Lectureship Award, JPA Eikohsha Award, JSCC International Award, State Natural Science Award, CCS-China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) Chemistry Contribution Prize, CCS Huang Yao-Zeng Organometallic Chemistry Award, etc. Her research interests include inorganic/organometallic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry and controlled assembly of nanostructures, photophysics and photochemistry, and metal-based molecular and nano-assembled functional materials for sensing, organic optoelectronics and energy research.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

‘Being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons, I am pleased that we are involved in a lot of decision-making. It is running on a highly transparent and open system. We are given opportunities to vote on different things, such as the outstanding papers awards, the top covers, and to provide nominations and suggestions, or to be involved in Horizons Symposia etc. We are also provided with the most up-to-date information on the developments of Materials Horizons.’

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

‘The team of the Department of Chemistry in The University of Hong Kong showcased for the first time a new class of robust gold(III) complexes with promising operational half-lifetime of more than 200,000 hours. The findings have been published in the special issue of Materials Horizons in honour of Professor Seth Marder (Mater. Horiz., 2022, 9, 281–293). Our most recent Materials Horizons publication (Mater. Horiz., 2022, 9, 281) reported the design and synthesis of yellow- to red-emitting gold(III) complexes and their applications in operationally stable organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs).

We showed that gold(III) complexes can display unprecedented room-temperature phosphorescence both in solution and in the solid state in 1993, and have since designed luminescent gold(III) systems and reported for the first time the use of phosphorescent gold(III) emitters in OLEDs in 2005. Through systematic spectroscopic and photophysical studies, together with rational molecular design and optimization of the molecular structure, their performances have since been increasingly improved towards practical device performance. Through the delicate balance of the radical anion stability and the resonance structures of the N-heterocyclic moieties introduced onto the cyclometalating ligand, a proper choice of the isomers is found to be the determining factor for the realization of high operational stability in these gold(III) complexes. The isomeric effect and extended π-conjugation of the N-heterocycles are shown to remarkably perturb the photophysical, electrochemical and electroluminescence properties of these gold(III) complexes. This has led to high device operational stabilities with long half-lifetime reaching 206,800 hours and maximum external quantum efficiencies of 14.5% in the vacuum-deposited devices, representing the longest operational half-lifetime as well as the highest EQE among the orange-emitting gold(III)-based devices reported so far at that time. This work has provided mechanistic insights and would have significant and important impact on the research and development of luminescent gold(III) complexes.’

Read Vivian W.W’ s latest articles across the Materials journals here:

Design and synthesis of yellow- to red-emitting gold(iii) complexes containing isomeric thienopyridine and thienoquinoline moieties and their applications in operationally stable organic light-emitting devices.

Lok-Kwan Li, Cathay Chai Au-Yeung, Man-Chung Tang, Shiu-Lun Lai, Wai-Lung Cheung, Maggie Ng, Mei-Yee Chan and Vivian Wing-Wah Yam.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 281-293. DOI:10.1039/d1mh00821h

Synthesis and photoswitchable amphiphilicity and self-assembly properties of photochromic spiropyran derivatives.

Yiwei Zhang, Maggie Ng, Eugene Yau-Hin Hong, Alan Kwun-Wa Chan, Nathan Man-Wai Wu, Michael Ho-Yeung Chan, Lixin Wu and Vivian Wing-Wah Yam.
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2020,8, 13676-13685. DOI: 10.1039/d0tc03301d

Darren Lipomi, Advisory Board Member

UC San Diego, USA

Darren J. Lipomi is a Professor of nanoengineering, chemical engineering, and materials Science at UC San Diego. He is also the Associate Dean for Students and the Faculty Director of the IDEA Engineering Student Center at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD. Lipomi earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in physics as a Beckman Scholar at Boston University in 2005, and his PhD in chemistry at Harvard University in 2010, with Prof. George M. Whitesides. From 2010 – 2012, he was an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Zhenan Bao at Stanford University, and arrived at UCSD in 2012. His research interests include the chemistry of organic materials, especially the mechanical properties of semiconducting polymers for flexible solar cells, biomechanical sensors, and phenomena that occur at the intersection of materials chemistry with human perception and cognition. He is the recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator award, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and the NSF BRITE-Pivot award. He hosts a podcast, “Molecular Podcasting with Darren Lipomi” and associated YouTube channel (Darren_Lipomi) that together have >15,000 subscribers. These venues serve as a resource to students, postdocs, and other early-career researchers.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

‘Serving on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons has been a true privilege. The multifaceted nature of this role, which allows me to engage with authors, editors, and editorial staff, is what I find most gratifying. I have been pleased to have the opportunity to shape the direction of the journal and influence the discourse within the scientific community. I have especially enjoyed interacting with my fellow board members, who come from a broad swath of the materials science community.’

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

‘The next decade holds great promise for materials science, in particular increased interdisciplinary in an already interdisciplinary field. We’ll likely witness the emergence of smarter materials for human interaction. That is, true bioinspiration; materials with combined sensor-actuator functionality and neuromorphic designs. I am especially interested in the intersection of materials science with human perception and psychology. The advent of more sustainable materials and improved methods for recycling will play a significant role in tackling environmental challenges. Furthermore, with advancements in computation and machine learning, materials design will become more predictive, accelerating the discovery of new materials with tailored properties.’

You can find Darren’s latest Materials Horizons and Nanoscale articles below:

Human ability to discriminate surface chemistry by touch.

Cody W. Carpenter, Charles Dhong, Nicholas B. Root, Daniel Rodriquez, Emily E. Abdo, Kyle Skelil, Mohammad A. Alkhadra, Julian Ramírez, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Darren J. Lipomi.
Mater. Horiz., 2018,5, 70-77. DOI: 10.1039/c7mh00800g

Exploring the limits of sensitivity for strain gauges of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride decorated with metallic nanoislands.

Julian Ramírez, Armando D. Urbina, Andrew T. Kleinschmidt, Mickey Finn, III, Samuel J. Edmunds, Guillermo L. Esparzaa and Darren J. Lipomi.

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 11209-11221. DOI: 10.1039/d0nr02270e

Luisa Torsi, Advisory Board Member

University of Bari, Italy

Luisa Torsi is a professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Bari and president of the Regional Center on Single-Molecule Digital Assay. She received her laurea degree in Physics and the PhD in Chemistry from UNIBA and was post-doctoral fellow at Bell Labs in USA.
In 2010 Torsi was awarded the Merck prize and in 2019, she received the Distinguished Women Award from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). She was also president of the European Material Research Society. Torsi is the winner of the Wilhelm Exner Medal 2021, a prize awarded since 1921 by the Austrian Industrial Association and the Premio del Presidente della Repubblica dell’Accademia dei Lincei. She is also a member of this prestigious Accademia since 2023
Torsi has authored ca. 240 papers, published also in Science and Nature journals. Her works collected mare then 16.400 Google Scholar citations resulting in an h-index of 63. Gathered research funding for over 40 M€, comprises several national and European projects, mostly coordinated by her. Torsi is committed to the role-modeling for younger women scientists. In a recent campaign by Fondazione Bracco, she was featured in a story of TOPOLINO (Italian series of Disney comics), as “Louise Torduck”, a successful female scientist of the Calisota valley.

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

‘I believe that a forthcoming challenge in the field will revolve around delving into the molecular-level investigation and comprehension of the electrostatic characteristics of proteins, especially when they are constrained to a surface or when they come together to create a biolayer.’

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

‘It a reflection on the comparison between electronic and electrochemical biosensors. It starts from the observation that several three-terminal organic bioelectronic structures have been proposed for diverse biosensing applications, with a focus on organic field-effect transistors in an electrolyte as popular choices for detecting proteins and genomic analytes. These devices gain selectivity by immobilizing bio-recognition elements and are cost-effective for point-of-care medical uses. However, they don’t consistently outperform traditional electrochemical sensors. The idea is to provide the community with a comparative analysis of potentiometric and amperometric electrochemical sensors against organic bioelectronic transistors, including an examination of their sensing mechanisms and amplification factors. It also discusses the functional relationship between sensor responses and analyte concentration for accurate quantification.’

Here are some of Luisa’s latest articles from across the Materials journals:

About the amplification factors in organic bioelectronic sensors.

Eleonora Macchia, Rosaria Anna Picca, Kyriaki Manoli, Cinzia Di Franco, Davide Blasi, Lucia Sarcina, Nicoletta Ditaranto, Nicola Cioffi, Ronald Österbacka, Gaetano Scamarcio, Fabrizio Torricelli and Luisa Torsi.

Mater. Horiz., 2020,7, 999-1013. DOI: 10.1039/c9mh01544b

A stable physisorbed layer of packed capture antibodies for high-performance sensing applications.

Lucia Sarcina, Cecilia Scandurra, Cinzia Di Franco, Mariapia Caputo, Michele Catacchio, Paolo Bollella, Gaetano Scamarcio, Eleonora Macchia and Luisa Torsi.
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023,11, 9093-9106. DOI: 10.1039/d3tc01123b

We hope you have enjoyed meeting our Advisory board members. Next month we take a look at some more of our featured Materials Horizons Emerging Investigators.

Or to read more of our community spotlight blog, return to the home page here

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Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’: Meet some of our Outstanding Reviewers!

02 Oct 2023

Introducing the Materials Horizons Outstanding Reviewers.

In our third ‘Community Spotlight’, we feature some of the outstanding reviewers who have supported Materials Horizons over the years. Our outstanding reviewers are selected each year for their excellence in maintaining the reliability and integrity of the Materials Horizons peer review process. We have asked them what they like most about being a reviewer for Material Horizons and about their own insights into what makes a great article and a great reviewer. Check out their interview responses and related articles below.

Markus Suta, Outstanding Reviewer.

Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany

Markus Suta studied both Chemistry and Physics at the University of Siegen in Germany and obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2017. He followed up with a postdoc at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands in Prof. Andries Meijerink’s group. Since 2021, he holds a position as a tenure track professor at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany. His group combines solid-state chemistry with advanced photoluminescence spectroscopy and theoretical modelling to better fundamentally understand and design luminescent materials for various applications. He is currently also member of the “Young College” of the North-Rhine Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

What do you like most about being a reviewer for Materials Horizons?

“You get to know research at the forefront of materials science at quite an early point and sometimes are just blasted by the excellent ideas of other researchers. On top, you can actively help even further improve their drafts – which can also be stimulating for joining forces or get a fresh new viewpoint on your own research.”

What has been your biggest learning point from reviewing?

“No matter how deep you are in your research topic and how carefully you read a manuscript – if you see the other reviews you often realize what you still have missed. This always shows me that multiple viewpoints – sometimes even off-topic – actually enrich the quality of a manuscript.”

You can read some of Markus’ recent research in Journal of Materials Chemistry C here:

Influence of excitation and detection geometry on optical temperature readouts – reabsorption effects in luminescence thermometry.

Natalia Stopikowska, Przemysław Woźny, Markus Suta, Teng Zheng, Stefan Lis and Marcin Runowski.
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023,11, 9620-9627. DOI: 10.1039/D3TC01684F

How to calibrate luminescent crossover thermometers: a note on “quasi”-Boltzmann systems

Benedikt Bendela and Markus Suta.
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022,10, 13805-13814. DOI: 10.1039/D2TC01152B

Molecular design of phenazine-5,10-diyl-dibenzonitriles and the impact on their thermally activated delayed fluorescence properties.

Dietrich Püschel, Julia Wiefermann, Simon Hédé, Tobias Heinen, Leo Pfeifer, Oliver Weingart, Markus Suta, Thomas J. J. Müller and Christoph Janiak.
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023,11, 8982-8991. DOI: 10.1039/D3TC01228J

Michael Dickey, Outstanding Reviewer.

North Carolina State University, USA

Michael Dickey received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (1999) and a PhD from the University of Texas (2006) under the guidance of Professor Grant Willson. From 2006-2008 he was a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Professor George Whitesides at Harvard University. He is currently the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at NC State University. He completed a sabbatical at Microsoft in 2016. Michael’s research interests include soft matter (liquid metals, gels, polymers) for soft and stretchable devices (electronics, energy harvesters, textiles, and soft robotics)

What encouraged you to become a reviewer for Materials Horizons?

“It helps me stay up to date on the latest work in the field of materials.”

What would you recommend to new reviewers to ensure their report is helpful?

“The review should be clearly written. Any critical comments should be justified so the authors have the chance to improve. Serving in an anonymous role like a reviewer comes with great responsibility. “

Discover some of Michael’s recent research in our RSC journals here:

Applications of liquid metals in nanotechnology

Francois-Marie Allioux, Mohammad B. Ghasemian, Wanjie Xie, Anthony P. O’Mullane, Torben Daeneke, Michael D. Dickey and Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh.

Nanoscale Horiz., 2022,7, 141-167. DOI: 10.1039/D1NH00594D

Broad-spectrum treatment of bacterial biofilms using magneto-responsive liquid metal particles

Samuel Cheeseman, Aaron Elbourne, Rashad Kariuki, Aswin V. Ramarao, Ali Zavabeti, Nitu Syed, Andrew J. Christofferson, Ki Yoon Kwon, Woojin Jung, Michael D. Dickey, Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh, Christopher F. McConville, Russell J. Crawford, Torben Daeneke, James Chapman and Vi Khanh Truong.
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2020,8, 10776-10787. DOI: 10.1039/D0TB01655A

Sheng-Heng Chung, Outstanding Reviewer.

National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.

Sheng-Heng Chung received his B.S. in Resource Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering from National Cheng Kung University and his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. He joined the Ph.D. program in Materials Science and Engineering and worked as a research associate with Professor Arumugam Manthiram at the University of Texas at Austin. Currently, he is an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Cheng Kung University. His current research focuses on electrochemical conversion and storage technology.

What has been your biggest learning point from reviewing?

“After reviewing thousands of peer-reviewed papers from more than 100 journals, I really appreciate the opportunity to have access to the high-ranking manuscript from prestigious journals. Reviewing the initially submitted manuscript, commenting the follow-up revision, and reading the published papers that I reviewed teach me the rigorous way to prepare our manuscript with sufficient data and detailed analysis. The reviewing processes also allow me to change my way of thinking about what my colleagues and I should bring to the reviewers and readers. Most importantly, serving as a reviewer is important for me to contribute my skills to the research field.”

Has being a reviewer affected how you approach the preparation of your recent manuscripts?

“Serving as a reviewer for Materials Horizons, I always receive the manuscript with high standard and new scientific knowledge. These high-level papers inspire me to organize my manuscript and evaluate my research. It is very important to adopt these excellent manuscripts’ writing and formatting to make my manuscript easy to read and look good. I also learn that the best way to present our best research is not only to publish the data as soon as possible, but also to support the ground-breaking data with solid evidence. I am also learning how to deal with rejection. After feeling sad, it is more useful to move on and revise my manuscript based on the reviewers’ constructive suggestions and make the rejected paper a better one. “

Check out Sheng-Heng’s latest research in Journal of Materials Chemistry A:

Lithium–sulfur cells with a sulfide solid electrolyte/polysulfide cathode interface

Yin-Ju Yena and Sheng-Heng Chung.
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 4519-4526. DOI: 10.1039/D2TA07806F

Integrated high-sulfur-loading polysulfide/carbon cathode in lean-electrolyte cell toward high-energy-density lithium–sulfur cells with stable cyclability

Yun-Chen Wu and Sheng-Heng Chung.
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 9455-9463. DOI: 10.1039/D3TA00210A

Composite gel-polymer electrolyte for high-loading polysulfide cathodes

Li-Ling Chiu and Sheng-Heng Chung.
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 13719-13726. DOI: 10.1039/D2TA01867E

Richard Kaner, Outstanding Reviewer

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA

Richard Kaner received a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 working with Prof. Alan MacDiarmid (Nobel Laureate 2000, deceased). After postdoctoral research at Berkeley, he joined the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1987, earned tenure in 1991, became a full professor in 1993, a Distinguished Professor in 2012 and was appointed to the Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation in 2017.

He has published over 460 papers in top peer reviewed journals and holds 73 U.S. patents. According to the most recent Clarivate Analytics/Thomson-Reuters rankings, he is among the world’s most highly cited authors. Professor Kaner has received awards from the Dreyfus, Fulbright, Guggenheim, Packard and Sloan Foundations along with the Materials Research Society Medal, the Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize, the Chemical Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Chemistry and the American Chemical Society’s Buck-Whitney Research Award, Tolman Medal, Award in the Chemistry of Materials and the Award in Applied Polymer Science for his work on refractory materials including new synthetic routes to ceramics, intercalation compounds, superhard metals, graphene and conducting polymers.

He has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Physical Society (APS), the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc), the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (Euro-Acad), the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

“Materials Horizons is a great place to publish high impact research across all areas involving new and exciting materials and their applications.”

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

“Materials have become one of the hottest areas in scientific exploration. They will continue to drive our economy in terms of new and improved products from safer and longer lasting batteries to enhanced electronics. As plastics have been ubiquitous, hopefully we will begin to see economical ways to reuse, up-cycle and ultimately depolymerize them to then form other useful materials.”

You can read Richard’s research in Materials Horizons here:

Crystalline tetra-aniline with chloride interactions towards a biocompatible supercapacitor

Xiaoling Tong, Guan Sheng, Dongzi Yang, Shuo Li, Cheng-Wei Lin, Wei Zhang, Zhihui Chen, Chaohui Wei, Xianzhong Yang, Fei Shen, Yanyan Shao, Hui Wei, Yihan Zhu, Jingyu Sun, Richard B. Kaner and Yuanlong Shao.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 383-392. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH01081F

Niobium pentoxide based materials for high rate rechargeable electrochemical energy storage

Fei Shen, Zhongti Sun, Qinggang He, Jingyu Sun, Richard B. Kaner and Yuanlong Shao.
Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 1130-1152. DOI: 10.1039/D0MH01481H

Joachim Vollbrecht, Outstanding Reviewer.

Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin (ISFH), Germany.

Joachim Vollbrecht obtained his B. Sc. in Chemistry and M. Sc. in Optoeletronics and Photonics at the University of Paderborn. Then, he worked in the group of Prof. Kitzerow on liquid crystalline organic semiconductor materials that were applied in organic light emitting diodes and organic thin film transistors. After graduating with his Dr. rer. Nat. in Physical Chemistry (2016), he moved from the University of Paderborn to the US and joined the group of Prof. Nguyen, as a Feodor Lynen postdoctoral fellow to the Center of Polymers and Organics Solids at the University of California, Santa Barbara. There he conducted research on non-fullerene organic photovoltaic devices and organic photodetectors. He returned to Germany to the group of Prof. Neher at the Institute of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Potsdam, where he worked on the recombination dynamics of organic solar cells. Currently, he is employed as project leader at the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin (ISFH), conducting research on perovskite solar cells.

What do you like most about being a reviewer for Materials Horizons?

“It is one of the best opportunities to have “early-access” to some of the most cutting-edge research in materials science and it also offers a wide variety of research topics to choose from.”

What would you recommend to new reviewers to ensure their report is helpful?

“Treat each review as if you – as the reviewer – would also be part of the list of authors. How can you give constructive feedback that would make this manuscript its best version possible? Would you sign the results presented in the manuscript with your own name and would you vouch for its contents?”

You can read about Joachim’s recent research in his article, currently in press, in Energy Advances here:

On the relationship of the effective mobility and photoconductance mobility in organic solar cells

Joachim Vollbrecht, Nurlan Tokmoldin, Bowen Sun, Elifnaz Saglamkaya, Lorena Perdigón-Toro, Seyed Mehrdad Hosseini, Jae Hoon Son, Han Young Woo, Safa Shoaee and Dieter Neher.
Energy Adv., 2023,2, 1390-1398. DOI: 10.1039/D3YA00125C

We hope you enjoy reading about some of our wonderful outstanding reviewers. Next month we return to showcase some more members of our esteemed Advisory Board!

Or to read more of our community spotlight blog, return to the home page here

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Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 2

25 Aug 2023

Introducing Materials Horizons’ Emerging Investigators 2020/2021 – Part 2.

In our second ‘Community Spotlight’, we feature some of our past ‘Emerging Investigators’ who have contributed their outstanding research to Materials Horizons.

Eleni Stavrinidou, Emerging Investigator 2021

Linköping University, Sweden

Eleni Stavrinidou is an Associate Professor and leader of the Electronic Plants group at Linköping University. She received a PhD in Microelectronics from EMSE (France) in 2014. She then did her postdoctoral training at Linköping University (Sweden) during which she was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship. In 2017 Eleni Stavrinidou became Assistant Professor in Organic Electronics at Linköping University and established the Electronic Plants group. She received several grants including a Swedish Research Council Starting Grant and a FET-OPEN grant which she was the coordinator. In 2020 she became Associate Professor and Docent in Applied Physics. The same year she was awarded the Future Research Leaders grant of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. In 2021 she was awarded the ERC-Staring Grant. Stavrinidou is recipient of the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science prize in Sweden (2019) and the Tage Erlander Prize for Natural Sciences and Technology from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2023). Her research interests focus on plant bioelectronics for real time monitoring and dynamic control of plant physiology and plant-based biohybrid systems for energy and sensing applications.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“I am fascinated by the potential of interfacing technological systems with biology to solve societal problems but also for pure scientific curiosity. Biological systems are beautiful but complex and can rarely be approximated into simpler ones of fully be described with physical laws. I find very inspiring the possibility to rationally manipulate biological events with technological devices but also to be able to use biological processes for development of materials or devices and harness some of nature’s intelligence in technology.”

How would you summarise the research which lead to your recognition as an Emerging Investigator for Materials Horizons?

“The research that led to my recognition from Materials Horizons is plant based biohybrid systems. Plants are amazing machines powered by the sun that can self-repair, sense, and adapt to their environment while having hierarchical structures and complex biochemistry. Plant based biohybrid systems aim to leverage plant processes and structures for technological applications. We developed biohybrid plants with an electronic root system. We harnessed the biocatalytic machinery of intact plants to integrate electronic materials into their structure while the plants maintain their biological functions and continue to grow and develop. The integrated mixed ionic–electronic conductors maintained their functionality over weeks and as a proof of concept we demonstrated energy storage in the plant. “

You can read Eleni’s editorial and featured article here:

Biohybrid plants with electronic roots via in vivo polymerization of conjugated oligomers

Daniela Parker, Yohann Daguerre, Gwennaël Dufil, Daniele Mantione, Eduardo Solano, Eric Cloutet, Georges Hadziioannou, Torgny Näsholm, Magnus Berggren, Eleni Pavlopoulou and Eleni Stavrinidou.

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 3295-3305 DOI: 10.1039/D1MH01423D

Materials Horizons Emerging Investigator Series: Dr Eleni Stavrinidou, Linköping University, Sweden.

Eleni Stavrinidou.

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 3176-3177. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH90062E

Tianyi Ma, Emerging Investigator 2021

RMIT, Australia

Tianyi Ma is a Full Professor in School of Science at RMIT University, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and Clarivate’s Global Highly Cited Researcher. He is a leading scientist in renewable energy field, with pioneering work done in the areas of functional photocatalytic, electrocatalytic, thermocatalytic and piezocatalytic materials for renewable solar, mechanical, and thermal energy harvesting, storage and utilisation, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), as well as next-generation high performance battery and supercapacitor energy storage devices. His research group aims to combine these revolutionary technologies focusing on all sectors of the renewable energy supply chain to eventually achieve the global carbon neutrality. He has secured over $15 million government and industry grants to conduct innovation work and industry directed projects. He has published over 300 refereed papers, filed 15 patents, and conducted multiple real-life demonstration projects. In recognition of his contribution and reputation, he has been awarded Horizon Prize of Royal Society of Chemistry, Australian Academy of Science Le Févre Medal, Australian Nominee for the 2023 APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education, Young Tall Poppy Science Award, and Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA).

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“One of my proudest research projects is the solar driven photocatalysis for hydrogen production, CO2 and N2 fixation. While previous research focus more on the powdery catalysts along with their insight reaction mechanism, now more and more attempts move to integrate the catalysts into monoliths and membranes and eventually into a realistic device, that can find more practical application in real-life deployment.”

What advice would you give to aspiring scientists who hope to make a significant impact in their respective fields?

“I would say it is always important to find fundamental breakthrough in science and technology, but it is also the ultimate goal to generate benefit out of science, namely, to translate the knowledge into true impact in the forms of prototypes, demonstrations, and even pilot plants. By doing this, scientists should seek for not only research collaborators but also industry partners to gather the expertise and experience from different parties and achieve something big.”

You can read Tianyi’s editorial and featured article here:

In situ identification of the electrocatalytic water oxidation behaviour of a nickel-based metal–organic framework nanoarray

Fanpeng Cheng, Zhongjian Li, Lin Wang, Bin Yang, Jianguo Lu, Lecheng Lei, Tianyi Ma and Yang Hou.

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 556-564 DOI: 10.1039/D0MH01757D

Materials Horizons Emerging Investigator Series: Tianyi Ma, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.

Tianyi Ma.

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 298-299 DOI: 10.1039/D1MH90007B

Chengyi Hou, Emerging Investigator 2021

Donghua University, China

Chengyi Hou, a professor at Donghua University, is engaged in the development of innovative methods and experimental approaches to address the key scientific and technical challenges related to scalable synthesis, processing and assembly of smart fibres and fabrics. The novel fibre/fabric materials realize sensory and actuatory tasks like health monitoring, personal thermal management, and human-machine interaction. Their potentialities in next-generation clothing have also been explored. Chengyi Hou edited one book on smart clothing, and published over 100 peer-review journal articles on smart fibres and wearable materials, with several publications on Science, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, Materials Horizons, amongst others.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“The rise of wearables. From socialization to personal health management, wearable digital devices are changing the way we experience our everyday lives. Along with everyone else I witnessed the impact of wearables in fashion, healthcare, entertainment, and many other industries. It encouraged me to keep involving in this specific field since the beginning of my career. However, there’s no guarantee that people will continue wearing digital devices over time because of barriers existing between wearables and wear. Currently, we are focusing on smart fibers, also known as fiber electronics, because it has obvious advantages in comfortability, weaveability, and wearability over bulk or thin-film devices. So, our next goal is to make wearables more wear-able.”

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“Try to imagine what will happen when all functions of a smartphone are integrated into a single fiber. Such a smart fiber represents the ultimate version of digital devices, and will revolutionize the way people live, work, and communicate. So, fiber electronics with either one or multiple digital functions including sensing, powering, displaying, and communication is extremely promising. I am also excited about the possible future of smart clothing. As our second skin, the new clothes based on smart fibers will become an intelligent interface between human and nature.”

You can read some of Chengyi’s featured articles here:

Scalable fluid-spinning nanowire-based inorganic semiconductor yarns for electrochromic actuators

Linpeng Li, Kun Wang, Hongwei Fan, Xiangyu Zhu, Jiuke Mu, Hao Yu, Qinghong Zhang, Yaogang Li, Chengyi Hou and Hongzhi Wang.

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 1711-1721 DOI: 10.1039/D1MH00135C

Scalable multi-dimensional topological deformation actuators for active object identification

Tianyi Ji, Wei Gong, Jie Zhou, Yangmin Jing, Ruizhe Xing, Bingjie Zhu, Kerui Li, Chengyi Hou, Qinghong Zhang, Yaogang Li and Hongzhi Wang.

Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 1726-1736 DOI: 10.1039/D2MH01567F

We hope you enjoy reading these interviews from our Emerging Investigators. You can find all our past Emerging investigator editorials and featured articles here:

Emerging Investigators 2020/2021

Emerging Investigators 2022/2023

This is only part two of September’s community spotlight. Don’t forget to check out part one here:

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary’ Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 1

Or to read more of our community spotlight blog, return to the home page here

Coming up next month in our Community Spotlight are our Outstanding Reviewers.

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Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 1

25 Aug 2023

Introducing Materials Horizons’ Emerging Investigators 2020/2021 – Part 1.

In our second ‘Community Spotlight’, we feature some of our past ‘Emerging Investigators’ who have contributed their outstanding research to Materials Horizons.

Ignasi Fina, Emerging Investigator 2020

Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, Spain

Dr. Ignasi Fina works as tenured scientist at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona belonging to Spanish National Research Council. He is focused on the study of new ferroelectric materials for non-volatile applications. Ignasi Fina did his PhD in Barcelona, before working as Beatriu de Pinós fellow in Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics (Germany). He was also awarded with Juan de la Cierva and Ramon y Cajal fellows. He has coauthored over 120 publications, being corresponding author in nearly half of them.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“In the area of research of materials for electronics, as in any other field of research, there are many questions to be answered. The most important thing is to do is focus on the right questions and be sure that you have the right tools to answer them in the best possible manner. The electronics industry is demanding more and more new materials; able to perform better and with novel functional properties. The number of potentially interesting new materials for the electronics industry is huge.

The bottle-necks and the large number of open questions faced by the electronic industry and the fact that I have the right tools to help solve some of them, motivated me to study high quality materials in thin film form, focusing mainly on ferroelectric materials.”

How would you summarise the research which lead to your recognition as an Emerging Investigator for Materials Horizons?

“I work with outstanding quality materials thanks to the work of my colleagues and the developing techniques that we use. These outstanding quality materials are difficult to be directly integrated in commercial devices due to their very demanding fabrication. However, high quality materials are excellent platform to help the understanding of intrinsic properties of materials. This understanding is fundamental for the design of devices showing better performance. My work on the characterization of these outstanding quality materials has allowed me to have a great impact on the field.”

Since becoming an Emerging Investigator, how do you feel your research has developed over time?

“Since becoming an Emerging Investigator, I reinforced my research lines, while collaborating in fruitful projects lead by other excellent scientists. I am very happy how my career has evolved after being highlighted as Emerging Investigator.”

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“Few years ago, I started to see works reporting on ferroelectric hafnia. These results were mainly reported by people from Namlab in Germany. I thought at that time that the material was very promising. I thought that the ferroelectric properties were excellent, plus the important fact that the material was fully CMOS compatible. However, the mechanisms that determined the ferroelectric performance of the material were not completely accurate or reliable. Indeed, this issue is still not solved. I find exciting to work on the fundamental understanding of this material, which is extremely relevant to solve the bottlenecks that the material is facing in order to be implemented in commercial devices. I am also very excited by the fact that ferroelectric hafnia is one of the few examples where you have a lot of transversal work in parallel: from theory or fundamental understanding of the material (as me) to integration in commercial devices by many companies and start-ups. Thus, I think that ferroelectric hafnia is a promising material for new generation of energy efficient memory applications capable to be integrated in novel computing architectures and thus of the highest interest.”

What advice would you give to aspiring scientists who hope to make a significant impact in their respective fields?

“The important thing is to work and to think. Both are important. On one hand, you can have excellent ideas, but if you do not have the skills and you do not dedicate time to implement them at a minimum level, it is very unlikely that you will make your ideas understandable by the other scientists and therefore their potential impact can be severely affected. On the other hand, you can work a lot, but if you do not have in your mind clear questions to be answered, you and your colleagues time-investments can be useless. In addition, I also want to emphasize that you must be extremely rigorous and honest. Successful careers are made of a long list of results that others can reproduce and eventually to integrate on applications, or at least this is what I want to think.”

What are some of the main challenges or obstacles you have encountered while conducting your research, and how have you overcome them?

“I am very lucky. I have been working with excellent people. Maybe, this is one of the most positive aspects of my career. My collaborators are excellent scientists in addition of easy-going people. This is an important aspect of the role, science is mainly based on people, not on instruments, or materials, so it is very important to select the right people to work with. Dark side of my career is the bureaucracy. I am not an against bureaucracy. I fully understand that big portion of the research that I am doing is thanks to public funding, including my salary, and we must be extremely transparent and rigorous with all the actions that we take and the money that we invest. However, I find myself dedicating 1 or 2 hours per day to fill paperwork or to reply to people from administration, who, by the way, do an excellent work and I want to thank them for this. I would try to go for longer projects, with even more evaluation stages, and a much more rigorous evaluation of the scientific output. I think that institutions should also trust in the honesty of scientists. This would help a lot on reducing bureaucracy.”

You can read Ignasi’s featured articles here:

Local manipulation of metamagnetism by strain nanopatterning

Michael Foerster, Enric Menéndez, Emerson Coy, Alberto Quintana, Carles Gómez-Olivella, Daniel Esqué de los Ojos, Oriol Vallcorba, Carlos Frontera, Lucia Aballe, Josep Nogués, Jordi Sort and Ignasi Fina.

Mater. Horiz., 2020,7, 2056-2062 DOI: 10.1039/D0MH00601G

Control of up-to-down/down-to-up light-induced ferroelectric polarization reversal

Huan Tan, Gustavo Castro, Jike Lyu, Pablo Loza-Alvarez, Florencio Sánchez, Josep Fontcuberta and Ignasi Fina.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 2345-2352 DOI: 10.1039/D2MH00644H

Jun Zhang, Emerging Investigator 2020

Qingdao University, China

Jun Zhang is currently a full professor at the College of Physics, Qingdao University. He received his PhD from Nankai University in 2011. After graduation, he started his career at the University of Jinan, where he worked from 2011–2014. Prior to joining Qingdao University in 2016, he worked with Prof. Nicola Pinna at Humboldt University, Berlin, in 2014–2015. He was selected as Materials Horizons- Emerging Investigator in 2020 and awarded highly cited author 2021 of RSC. Current research in his group is focused on the elaboration of nanostructured materials for applications in gas sensors and energy devices. He has published over 130 scientific papers in peer-review journals with over 10000 citations and H-index of 60. He has delivered over 20 invited talks in academic conferences.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“I would say my footsteps in my current research in nanomaterials and sensors were derived from my interest in chemistry. I have been getting quite good scores in Chemistry since middle school. It is amazing that you can create new materials and beautiful structures by chemical reactions, the process of which is quite magic and artistical. When I started pursing my postgraduate degree, I decided to follow my interest in chemistry to make new materials and structures and use them to fabricate gas sensors. To me, the sensory process is another field full of curiosity. The unseen interactions between gasses molecules and materials surface lead to visible changes in electrical signals. At the same time, I note the sensors are very ubiquitous and useful in our daily life. Although there are still many challenges, I would not stop my steps in this field.”

Since becoming an Emerging Investigator, how do you feel your research has developed over time?

“I would like to truly thank the editors of Materials Horizons for having considered me as a candidate for an Emerging Investigator. This further strengthens our confidence in the sensor research. It also helps build our credit in this field. In the past two years, we have received several invitations by RSC journals like Mater Horizon, Chem Comm, Chem Soc Rev and Sensor Diagnosis to submit our new works. I believe it is the quality of our works that lead to the invitations for submission. I also received a certificate as a RSC-Highly Cited Author. Looking back, since my first paper published in JMC in 2010, I have published over 15 papers in RSC journals. I would thank RSC for having contributed to the development of my career. I am more than happy that our works are read and recognized by the community.”

You can read Jun’s featured article here:

Platinum single atoms on tin oxide ultrathin films for extremely sensitive gas detection

Yongshan Xu, Wei Zheng, Xianghong Liu, Liqiang Zhang, Lingli Zheng, Chen Yang, Nicola Pinna and Jun Zhang.

Mater. Horiz., 2020,7, 1519-1527 DOI: 10.1039/D0MH00495B

Zhengyang Bin, Emerging Investigator 2021

Sichuan University, China.

Zhengyang Bin is a professor at College of Chemistry in Sichuan University. He received his PhD from Tsinghua University in 2018, under the supervision of Prof. Yong Qiu and Prof. Lian Duan. His current research focuses on OLED materials and devices.

What inspired you to pursue a career in your specific field of research?

“My research focuses on OLED materials and devices, driven by two key factors. Firstly, the exciting and innovative nature of OLED technology offers numerous potential benefits, making it a promising field for further exploration and advancement. Secondly, my PhD advisers’ personal charm and mentorship have inspired me to pursue this career with great passion and dedication.”

How would you summarize the research which lead to your recognition as an Emerging Investigator for Materials Horizons?

“In our Emerging Investigator Series article ‘A methyl-shield strategy enables efficient blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence hosts for high-performance fluorescent OLEDs’ (DOI:10.1039/D1MH00530H), a novel strategy of incorporating a methyl-shield into TADF hosts in TSF-OLEDs achieved, for the first time ever, an extremely high efficiency of 32.3% for these OLEDs.”

Since becoming an Emerging Investigator, how do you feel your research has developed over time?

“This recognition leads to increased visibility and opportunities for collaboration, funding, and further research growth.”

What are some of the current trends or emerging areas of research within your field that you find particularly exciting or promising?

“One of the exciting and promising emerging areas of research in OLED is the development of narrowband OLED emitters. By improving colour purity and efficiency compared to traditional broad-spectrum OLEDs, narrowband OLEDs have the potential to revolutionize high-quality displays for medical imaging or other colour-critical applications, as well as lighting for horticulture and agricultural purposes. This groundbreaking innovation represents a significant step forward in advancing OLED technology and its various benefits.”

What advice would you give to aspiring scientists who hope to make a significant impact in their respective fields?

“Pursuing your passions, remaining open-minded, staying up to date with the latest research, collaborating with others and persevering through failure.”

What are some of the main challenges or obstacles you have encountered while conducting your research, and how have you overcome them?

“Creating unique and representative works in the field can be a challenging yet crucial task. To overcome this obstacle, I dedicated significant effort to reading numerous papers and experimenting with different approaches. Through dedicated effort, my team and I have formulated a novel “medium-ring” strategy for the development of structurally unconventional OLED materials. This approach holds much potential for the further development of OLED materials and assembly of high-performance OLED devices.”

You can read some of Zhengyang Bin’s featured articles here:

A methyl-shield strategy enables efficient blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence hosts for high-performance fluorescent OLEDs.

You Ran, Ge Yang, Yang Liu, Weiguo Han, Ge Gao, Rongchuan Su, Zhengyang Bin and Jingsong You.

Mater. Horiz., 2021,8, 2025-2031 DOI: 10.1039/D1MH00530H

Dipole moment engineering enables universal B–N-embedded bipolar hosts for OLEDs: an old dog learns a new trick.

Shuang He, Junjie Liu, Ge Yang, Zhengyang Bin and Jingsong You.

Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 2818-2823. DOI: 10.1039/D2MH00856D

Geometry engineering of a multiple resonance core via a phenyl-embedded strategy toward highly efficient narrowband blue OLEDs

Yimin Wu, Xiaoyu Liu, Junjie Liu, Ge Yang, Songyan Han, Dezhi Yang, Xiaosong Cao, Dongge Ma, Zhengyang Bin and Jingsong You.

Mater. Horiz., 2023, Advance Article. DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00617D

We hope you have enjoyed reading these interviews from our Emerging Investigators. You can find all our past Emerging investigator editorials and featured articles here:

Emerging Investigators 2020/2021

Emerging Investigators 2022/2023

This is only part one of September’s community spotlight. Don’t forget to check out part two here:

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 2

Or to read more of our community spotlight blog, return to the home page here

Coming up next month in our Community Spotlight are our Outstanding Reviewers.

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Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meeting our Advisory board.

19 Jul 2023

Introducing the Materials Horizons Advisory board!

In our first ‘Community Spotlight’, we feature some of the Advisory Board members who have supported Materials Horizons over the years. We have asked them what they like most about being on the journal’s Advisory Boards, about their recent publications and about their own insights into the future of materials chemistry. Check out their interview responses and related articles below.

Aron Walsh, Advisory Board member.

Imperial Collage London, UK.

Aron Walsh is a Full Professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in the Department of Materials. He leads the Materials Design Group at the Thomas Young Centre in London and holds a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

Aron was awarded his PhD in Chemistry from Trinity College Dublin. He then worked for the US Department of Energy at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, followed by a Marie Curie Fellowship hosted by University College London, and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship held at the University of Bath.

His research involves cutting-edge materials theory and simulation applied to problems across solid-state chemistry and physics, including materials for solar cells and fuels, batteries, thermoelectrics, and solid-state lighting. He has expertise in the theory of semiconductors and dielectrics, and is developing innovative solutions for materials data, informatics and design.

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

“In the next 10 years, materials chemistry will be influenced by the increasing significance of data. Data will play a dual role, enhancing research reproducibility and expediting scientific breakthroughs. By adopting data-driven techniques, researchers can leverage large structure-property datasets and advanced analytics to gain deeper insights, optimise materials, and accelerate the pace of discovery. We will need to foster community consensus in terms of formats, repositories, and ontologies, but in the end, this will yield substantial long-term benefits.”

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

“I am captivated by the influence of temperature on the structures and properties of solids. While traditional approaches excel in modelling the behaviour of dense inorganic crystals, they struggle to scale up for the new generation of flexible metal-organic or covalent-organic frameworks. Here, Ju Huang showcased the effectiveness of machine learning in addressing this challenge. Her study revealed how the local structure of layered frameworks dynamically distorts over time, leading to the emergence of average features observed in experimental probes. The development of machine-learned forcefields to describe crystal dynamics is helping to bridge the length and timescale gaps between modelling and measurements in materials chemistry.”

You can find this article by Ju Huang, Aron Walsh et al. here:

‘Room-temperature stacking disorder in layered covalent-organic frameworks from machine-learning force fields’

Ju Huang, Seung-Jae Shin, Kasper Tolborg, Alex M. Ganose, Gabriel Krenzer and Aron Walsh.
Mater. Horiz., 2023, Advance Article. DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00314K

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/MH/D3MH00314K

Mengye Wang, Advisory Board member.

Sun Yat-Sen University, China

Dr Mengye Wang obtained her PhD from the Department of Chemistry, Xiamen University, Fujian, China, (2010 – 2015) one year and a half of which was spent as a visiting PhD student at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship in Applied Physics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2018) and was shortly appointed her current role as Associate Professor at the School of Materials, Sun Yat-sen University. Dr Wang’s interests lie within the field of photocatalytic, electrocatalytic and piezocatalytic H₂ evolution, CO₂ reduction, N₂fixation and H₂O₂ generation. From 2015 Dr Wang has been an active community board member for Materials Horizons and later in 2019 accepted an advisory board role for Materials Advances and Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

“Having more opportunity to reach out to outstanding scholars.”

In your opinion, how could the journal engage more with members of the community?

“It would be great if the journal could hold offline meetings to give board members the opportunity to get to know each other more. “

You can read Mengye Wang’s latest article in Journal of Materials Chemistry A here:

‘Highly selective semiconductor photocatalysis for CO₂ reduction.’

Shan Yao, Jiaqing He, Feng Gao, Haowei Wang, Jiahui Lin, Yang Bai, Jingyun Fang, Feng Zhu, Feng Huang and Mengye Wang.
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 12539-12558. DOI: 10.1039/D2TA09234D

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/ta/d2ta09234d

Jurriaan Huskens, Advisory Board member.

University of Twente, Netherlands.

Jurriaan Huskens (1968) obtained his PhD (1994) at the Delft University of Technology with Herman van Bekkum. After postdoctoral stays with Dean Sherry and Manfred Reetz, he became an assistant professor with David Reinhoudt at the University of Twente in 1998, and a full professor of the Molecular Nanofabrication group in 2005. He received the Unilever Research Award (1990), a Marie Curie fellowship (1997), the Gold Medal 2007 of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society, and a fellowship from the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, UK (2019). He is a (co)author of about 400 refereed research papers, five patents, and a book on Multivalency.

Jurriaan’s present research interests include supramolecular chemistry at interfaces, supramolecular materials, multivalency, nanofabrication, and green chemistry.

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

“In the next 10 years we will see a further integration of materials chemistry with biology. This integration deals with the design and implementation of materials in biological environments as well as the merging of biological concepts and components in the assembly of new materials.”

Could you provide a summary of your most recent Materials Horizons publication?

“Vesicles provide an immense source of inspiration. They use lipids, the natural components of cell membranes, to form a shell that provides compartmentalization, a contact point for interactions with the outside world and a barrier to control the transfer of signals and molecules. Vesicles can be used to build artificial cells (Y. Lu, G. Allegri, J Huskens; 2022). These artificial cells can span the whole range from fully de novo designed materials to systems that are hosting complex biological machineries. For me personally, the molecular properties of cell membranes, such as dedicated chemical functionalization and control over properties of binding and mobility, remain fascinating and provide fantastic opportunities for future work.”

You can find this article by Lu, Allegri and Huskens below:

‘Vesicle-based artificial cells: materials, construction methods and application.’

Yao Lu, Giulia Allegri and Jurriaan Huskens
Mater. Horiz., 2022,9, 892-907. DOI: 10.1039/D1MH01431E

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/mh/d1mh01431e

C.N.R Rao, Advisory Board member.

Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India.

C.N.R. Rao has been working in the area of chemistry of materials for more than 65 years. He is the author of over 1790 research papers in this area and has authored and edited 56 books. He started working on the chemistry of nanomaterials well before nanoscience became a popular area of investigation. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, he started investigating the electronic structures of small metal nanocrystals. During that period, he carried out studies of fullerenes as well. Since then, he has carried out investigations of a variety of nanomaterials including nanocrystals, nanowires, and nanotubes and nanofilms. His contributions relate to new synthetic methods, new materials, properties, and phenomena. Thus, he has not only discovered new methods of synthesizing and purifying carbon nanotubes, but also a simple way to separate metallic and semiconducting carbon nanotubes. His contributions to the synthesis and properties of graphene are noteworthy, the work on inorganic nanotubes and graphene analogues of inorganic layered materials being especially significant. Very recently, he has successfully carried out artificial photosynthesis and hydrogen generation using nanoparticles and nanosheets as catalysts.

Some industries/start-ups have made use of C.N.R. Rao’s work. (e.g., nanotube synthesis and purification, supercapacitor technology and metal-semiconductor CNT separation).

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

“Materials Horizon summarizes the very best in materials science.”

Where do you see the materials chemistry field in the next 10 years?

“I see a focus in the development of 3D Energy and Climate.”

You can read C.N.R Rao’s latest insightful perspective article on water splitting here:

‘Chemically functionalized phosphorenes and their use in the water splitting reaction.’

Pratap Vishnoi, Aditi Saraswat and C. N. R. Rao.

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 19534-19551. DOI: 10.1039/D2TA01932A

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/ta/d2ta01932a

Ye Zhou, Advisory Board member.

Shenzhen University, China

Prof. Ye Zhou is a group leader in the Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, China. He was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2021, Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) in 2022, and Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET) in 2022. He received his B.S. from Nanjing University (2008), M.S. from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2009) and Ph.D. from City University of Hong Kong (2013). He worked as postdoctoral fellow and senior research fellow in City University of Hong Kong (2013-2015) and joined Shenzhen University in 2015. His research interests include nanostructured materials and nano-scale devices for technological applications, such as neuromorphic electronics, logic circuits, memory, photonics, and sensors.

What do you like most about being on the Advisory Board for Materials Horizons?

“I can study from other members and share my knowledge and insights as an advisory board member. It offers me an excellent opportunity for networking and establishing valuable professional connections in materials research society.”

What do you think of Materials Horizons as a place to publish impactful materials chemistry research?

“In my opinion, Materials Horizons is a prestigious and leading journal in materials chemistry research. There is a great editorial team to help the authors and papers published in Materials Horizons can receive widespread attention.”

You can read some of Ye Zhou’s most recent research, in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, here:

‘Enhancing the stability of the polymeric Lewis-base-assisted dual-phase 3D CsPbBr₃–Cs₄PbBr₆ perovskite by molecular engineering and self-passivation.’

Fang-Cheng Liang, Zhen-Li Yan, Dhana Lakshmi Busipalli, Jean-Sebastien Benas, Zhi-Xuan Zhang, Su-Ting Han, Ye Zhou, Jyh-Chiang Jiang and Chi-Ching Kuo.

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2023,11, 307-320. DOI: 10.1039/D2TC03690H

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/tc/d2tc03690h

We sincerely hope you enjoy reading about some of our superb Advisory board members and their latest research.

Keep an eye out for our second edition of the Advisory board Community spotlight!

Or to read more of our community spotlight blog, return to the home page here

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Materials Horizons Blog

Archive for the ‘10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’’ Category

Materials Horizons 10th anniversary Community Spotlight; Meet some more of our esteemed Advisory Board Members!

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 3

Materials Horizons Community Spotlight – Celebrating ten years of insight and impact with our scientific collaborators

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’. Meet more of our esteemed Advisory Board Members!

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’: Meet some of our Outstanding Reviewers!

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 2

Eleni Stavrinidou, Emerging Investigator 2021

Linköping University, Sweden

Tianyi Ma, Emerging Investigator 2021

RMIT, Australia

Chengyi Hou, Emerging Investigator 2021

Donghua University, China

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meet our Emerging Investigators Part 1

Ignasi Fina, Emerging Investigator 2020

Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, Spain

Jun Zhang, Emerging Investigator 2020

Qingdao University, China

Zhengyang Bin, Emerging Investigator 2021

Sichuan University, China.

Materials Horizons 10th Anniversary ‘Community Spotlight’ – Meeting our Advisory board.

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