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Viewing archives for Materials Science

Introduction

I went to school at Marling School in Stroud, Gloucestershire, then, starting in 2015 studied for both my undergraduate and doctoral degrees in materials science at at Mansfield then Oriel College, Oxford. Having gained a DPhil in 2023, I spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher within Mauro Pasta’s research group, working on lithium alloy electrodes for solid state batteries, and led a work package of the Faraday Institution’s SOLBAT consortium. I was recently awarded a Research Fellowship, where I am now building a research group currently focused on lightweight magnesium alloy development for robotics, aerospace and automotive applications.

Teaching

I teach mechanical properties courses materials science to first, second- and third-year undergraduates at Queen’s. I also lecture thermodynamics to first year undergraduates, and supervise Part II (fourth year), DPhil and post-doctoral researchers

Research

My research is centered on metallurgy. Particularly, lightweight structural materials. The research combines mechanical testing and electrochemistry with high-throughput materials development, aiming at greater strength, ductility and corrosion resistance. Current projects are focused on the development of magnesium alloys for robotics, aerospace and automotive applications.

Publications

You can find a full list of my publications here

Introduction

I grew up in India and studied at Chinmaya International Residential School. I moved to Singapore to pursue my bachelor’s degree in Physics and PhD at the National University of Singapore. I continued there as a Research Fellow and later as a Senior Research Fellow, before moving to Oxford in 2022 as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow. In 2024, I was selected as a Young Scientist for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and was awarded the Royal Society University Research Fellowship, through which I established my research group, Designer Quantum Materials for Devices. I took up my current position at Queen’s College and the Department of Materials in 2026.

Teaching

I teach across the Materials curriculum, connecting fundamental principles of physics to explain the properties and functions of materials. I also supervise undergraduate projects and DPhil students. Previously, I have worked with the Ministry of Education (Singapore) to develop fun and engaging demonstrations for science education. I am also an advisor to the non-profit: Raising a Mathematician Foundation.

Research

My research is driven by the ambition of designing the ‘Silicon of tomorrow’: new materials that could unlock technologies beyond what is possible today. My group explores quantum materials, where interactions between electrons, spins and atoms can give rise to remarkable collective properties. By tailoring these interactions, we aim to design materials with bespoke functions. Our work has led to the discovery of nanoscale topological magnetic states that can be controlled through materials design. We are now learning to harness these states and their exceptionally fast dynamics to develop ultrafast and energy-efficient information technologies.

Publications

  • H Jani, J Harrison, S Hooda, S Prakash, P Nandi, J Hu, Z Zeng, J-C Lin, GJ Omar, J Raabe, S Finizio, A V-Y Thean, A Ariando, P Radaelli. Spatially reconfigurable antiferromagnetic states in topologically-rich freestanding nanomembranes. Nature Materials 23, 619 (2024).
  • H Jani, J-C Lin, J Chen, J Harrison, F Maccherozzi, J Schad, S Prakash, C-B Eom, Ariando, T Venkatesan, P Radaelli. Antiferromagnetic half-skyrmions and bimerons at room temperature. Nature 590, 74 (2021).
  • A Tan, H Jani, M Hogen, L Stefan, C Castelnovo, D Braund, A Geim, M Feuer, H Knowles, A Ariando, P Radaelli, M Atature. Revealing Emergent Magnetic Charge in a Topological Antiferromagnet with Diamond Quantum Magnetometry. Nature Materials 23, 205 (2024).
  • H Jani, J Linghu, S Hooda, R Chopdekar, C Li, GJ Omar, S Prakash, Y Du, P Yang, A Banas, K Banas, S Ghosh, S Ojha, G Umapathy, D Kanjilal, Ariando, S Pennycook, E Arenholz, P Radaelli, JMD Coey, Y Feng, T Venkatesan. Reversible hydrogen control of antiferromagnetic anisotropy in α-Fe2O3. Nature Communications 12, 1668 (2021).

A complete list of my publications can be found here

Introduction

I did both my BSc and MSc at Università Roma Tre where I graduated with Honours in Condensed Matter Physics (2018). I then moved to London for my PhD in UCL before moving to Oxford as a PDRA in Materials (2023-2025) and subsequently to the Department of Chemistry as EPSRC/Glasstone Research Fellow and Junior Research Fellow in The Queen’s College (2025 – ).   

Research

The central pillar of my research is gaining a fundamental understanding of how weak intermolecular interactions determine the local and intermediate range structure of liquids. Model systems of iteratively increasing complexity are selected to target interactions with specific applied systems in mind. To date I have focused on aromatics and substituted aromatics which underpin protein frameworks, sulfur heteroaromatics for plastic electronics, industrially relevant solvents, and battery electrolytes.

Publications

A full list of my publications can be found here

Introduction

I completed my undergraduate, master’s and PhD degrees at Imperial College London in the Chemistry, Physics and Materials Departments over the course of 8 years. I then worked at the National Graphene Institute in the University of Manchester as a postdoctoral research associate for a year. After which I spent two years at Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. I have now moved to the University of Oxford as a Glasstone Research Fellow in Materials and an Extraordinary Junior Research Fellow in Materials of Queen’s College. 

Research

My research focuses on the theory and simulation of materials of interest for applications in energy storage technologies, from liquid electrolytes to low-dimensional layered materials. I have developed theories for how electrolytes arrange at electrified interfaces for applications in supercapacitors and batteries, developed approaches for electronic structure calculations of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene to understand its broken symmetry phases, and recently developed transferable machine learning interatomic potentials for electrolytes of interest in battery applications. Recently, I have been applying machine learning methods for atomistic simulations to investigate problems such as solid electrolyte interphase formation in batteries and charge density waves in 2D materials, and understanding these systems more generally through the development of simple theories.

Publications

A full list of my publications can be found here

Course

  • MEng Materials Science (a four-year integrated Masters course)

Average Intake at Queen’s: 6

The Course

Materials Science is a topic that underpins much of modern society and industry. It is a truly interdisciplinary subject, spanning the physics and chemistry of matter, engineering applications and industrial and manufacturing processes. It is at the core of nanotechnology, the production of devices and materials at the molecular level, which is likely to drive the next technological revolution.

The Oxford Materials Science programme is a four-year course, designed to introduce students to novel advanced techniques and devices in the field. Probably the highlight of the Materials Science programme is the fourth year, when an individual research project is carried out for the duration of that year, based in one of the specialist research groups within the Department, or at another academic institute or industrial laboratory anywhere in the world.

Teaching

In the first and second years of the programme the Materials Science tutorials are arranged by the Colleges. Queen’s joins forces with Mansfield College and Corpus Christi College and together we have a small group of Tutorial Fellows in Materials Science, covering the breadth of topics taught during these years of the programme. The vast majority of the tutorials in the first and second years are therefore given by this set of academics, meaning students benefit from great continuity in their teaching. This arrangement has been in place for a number of years, and we think it works well. In the third year, students specialise by taking options courses. Their associated classes are departmentally organised, and usually given by the course lecturer, a specialist in the relevant field. In the Materials Science programme, the fourth year consists entirely of research, which is supervised by an academic who is a specialist in that particular field.

Admissions

Usually, two Materials Science interviews are given, one at each of two different colleges. Each is usually conducted by two academics who will investigate a candidate’s motivation for studying Materials Science and the Physical Sciences more generally, their ability to solve mathematical and scientific problems and their ability to apply their knowledge of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. Overall, we aim to determine a candidate’s potential for study on our programmes, and not just to assess their acquired knowledge. Please see the Faculty’s webpage for full admissions criteria.

Research

I am interested in control over the interaction between light and matter at the quantum level. I also study materials and devices for quantum optics and optoelectronics, primarily involving defects in diamond and semiconductor quantum dots, as well as applications in quantum communications and computing. Other areas of research include optical microsystems for quantum optics, chemical sensing and spectroscopy.


Introduction

I attended my local state grammar school (King Edward VI, Chelmsford) and then studied for both my undergraduate and doctoral degrees in engineering at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. I then spent four years as a research fellow at St. John’s College, Cambridge which included two years in the USA as a Marie Skłodowska Curie fellow at Lawrence Berkley national laboratory. Following this I then spent a brief period as a Diamond-Manchester research fellow within the school of chemistry at the University of Manchester but based at Diamond Light Source on the Harwell campus. In 2019, I took up my current position at Queen’s and the materials department in Oxford.

Teaching

I teach subjects from across the materials course to first, and second-year undergraduates at Queen’s and Mansfield. I also currently supervise two graduate (DPhil) students and two post-doctoral researchers.

Research

My research interests lie primarily in the area of interface science – that is understanding the reactions occurring at the interfaces between materials and their environment. Much of my group’s work involves the development of novel interface sensitive characterisation techniques and using these to understand both desirable and unwanted reactions that occur at the interfaces between functional materials during operation. This includes electrode-electrolyte interfaces in rechargeable batteries, the surfaces of heterogeneous catalyst materials in gas and liquid environments, and two-dimensional materials growing on top of flat substrates.

Publications

For a full list of publications, please visit: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=DLUsdFkAAAAJ&hl=en.


Introduction

After attending a state grammar school and 6th form college in Manchester, I studied metallurgy, economics and management at St Anne’s College, Oxford. I stayed on at St Anne’s to do a DPhil in materials. I then spent several years in the Materials Department in Oxford working first as a postdoctoral researcher, then as a departmental lecturer, including having teaching responsibilities at Pembroke College and a Junior Research Fellowship at Linacre College. In 2000, I was appointed to a lectureship in Oxford and a Fellowship at Queen’s.

Teaching

I taught the first and second year material scientists at Queen’s, Corpus Christi and Mansfield colleges in aspects of phase transformations, microstructures and processing of materials. I also taught part of a third year options course in advanced manufacturing of metals and alloys. I supervised Part II (fourth year) materials undergraduates during their final year projects and graduate (DPhil) students.

Research

In my research I study solidification processing of advanced materials from laboratory scale through to pilot-scale processing plant. I have particular interests in controlling the grain structure of the metal, controlling the phases which form in the materials and in maintaining quality whilst re-cycling metals. My main focus is on working with aluminium alloys and intermetallics.

For more details and a list of current projects see my department webpage.

Publications

  • Sundaram Kumar, Sam Agarwal and Keyna O’Reilly, In-sity Al3Nb formation in liquid Al by Nb particle addition, Materials Science Forum 812, 10.4028 (2015)
  • F. Yan, S. Kumar, B.J. McKay and K.A.Q. O’Reilly, Effect of Mn on Fe containing phase formation in high purity aluminium, Int. J. of Cast Metals Research 27, 10.1179 (2014)
  • Jayesh B. Patel, Hu-Tian Li, Xia Mingxu, Simon Jones, Sundaram Kumar, Keyna O’Reilly and Zhongyun Fan, Melt conditioned direct chill casting (MD-DC) process for production of high quality aluminium alloy billets, Mat. Sci. Forum 794-796, 10,4028 (2014)
  • Tahsina Smith, Keyna O’Reilly, Sundaram Kumar and Ian Stone, Influence of grain-refiner addition on the morphology of Fe-bearing intermetallics in a semi-solid processed Al-Mg-Si alloy, Met. and Mat. Transactions A 44A, 10.1007 (2013)