Research
The research we conduct stems from gaining greater fundamental understanding of the underlying physics and chemistry of carbon nanomaterials (primarily fullerenes and carbon nanotubes) in order to exploit their properties in cutting-edge applications.
Our expertise lies particularly in the field of fullerenes and extends beyond the most abundant fullerene, C60, to incorporate a large family of fullerene species. These include large-cage fullerenes (e.g. C70, C84), rare earth endohedral metallofullerenes (e.g. Gd@C82, Lu3N@C80), and the nitrogen-containing endohedral fullerenes, N@C60 and N@C70.
The syntheses of these more exotic fullerenes are challenging in their own right. A significant proportion of our work also focuses on then synthesising derivatives via functionalisation of the fullerene cages using wet chemical methods. Such molecules can then be studied for a variety of technological applications.