Physics Department News

Due to work being carried out on up-grading the power supply, the Physics Building will be closed on Thursday 9^th April 2009.  As this is a normal working day, staff are requested to work from home where possible.  Please ensure that no meetings are arranged in the department that day, as there will be NO electricity. If for any reason this planned shutdown does not take place, staff will  be notified as soon as possible and be expected to attend for work as normal.  If you have subsequently already planned something on that day that prevents you attending work then you will be required to treat this as holiday (unless of course, it is work related).

In the recent research assessment 50% of the research submitted by the Warwick Department of Physics was judged to be internationally excellent or of internationally leading quality with 95% judged to have international standing. All 51 eligible academic staff were submitted in the exercise, an increase of 20 since the last assessment in 2001. Part of this major expansion has involved 2 new groups in astrophysics and particle physics being established.

Malcolm Cooper, Head of Department, said  "The RAE result is particularly gratifying and describes a vibrant and developing research community. Many of the new staff are at an early stage in their research careers and are developing their positions on the international stage. This endorsement of the Department's research quality bodes exceptionally well for the future of the Department." 

The Department's success has helped sustain the University of Warwick's position as one of the UK's leading research universities, with Warwick ranked at 7th overall in the UK.

Congratulations to Tim Veal who has been awarded the 2008 C.R. Birch Prize by the British Vacuum Council.  This award is awarded to a young scientist (under 32) for ‘outstanding work in the field of vacuum science, surface science or thin films’.  

Dr. Sloan was recently appointed to an Associated Professorship in Electron Microscopy at the School of Physics, Warwick. His research interests include the physical properties and applications of atomically constrained crystals in carbon nanotubes; the synthesis and applications of 'smart' nanocomposites with two or more useful physical properties based on layered chalcogenides and composites with complex oxides; the imaging of the defects and lattice distortions present in technologically relevant complex oxides. These studies will be achieved by advanced HRTEM imaging methods enabling aberration-free sub-Angstrom imaging in new instrumentation to be acquired for the Departments of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Warwick.

Dr. J.Sloan received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Hull University in 1982, an M.Sc. in Chemical Thermodynamics in 1990 from Binghamton University NY (USA) and a PhD in Materials in 1995 from the School of Engineering at the University of Wales, Cardiff under Prof. Richard Tilley FRSC. He joined the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory in Oxford in 1995 as a PDRA and during this time discovered 2x2 and 3x3 atomic layer KI crystals formed in single walled nanotubes.

In 2000 Dr. Sloan was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship followed by a Research Fellowship at Wolfson College (2003). For his work on low dimensional crystals in carbon nanotubes Dr. Sloan was given the FEI European Microscopy Award at the ICEM in Antwerp 2004.

Previous and future research collaborations have included: University of Oxford; Queen Mary University of London; University of Surrey; Dr. Emmanuel Flahaut, at CNRS Toulouse; Prof. Kazu Suenaga at the AIST National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan; and Prof. Reshef Tenne at the Wiezmann Institute of Science, Rehovot