4 Dphil Studentships in Physical & Theoretical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry in UK | University of Oxford

Applications are invited for up to 4 DPhil studentships in Physical & Theoretical Chemistry, to work under the supervision of Professor Richard G Compton. These studentships are part of a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant concerned with fundamental and applied aspects of the electrochemistry of single nanoparticles.

The ERC project is focussed on experiments which will utilise a revolutionary technique, partly developed by the Group, for the stochastic study of nanoparticle behaviour. The results of these experiments will likely have significant implications from both an industrial and fundamental standpoint. In these experiments nanoparticles (for example of Ag, Cu, Ni, Au, indigo, Fe3O4) in solution impact a microelectrode held under potentiostatic control by virtue of their Brownian motion. If the applied potential is sufficiently oxidising or reducing then the impact can lead to current transients of ca millisecond duration in which the charge passed indicates the number of atoms/molecules in the nanoparticles since the oxidation/reduction is quantitative even for particles as large as ca 100nm (see Angewandte Chemie, 50, (2011), 4219-4221 and 52, (2013), in press). Experiments of this type allow the measurement of the size and size distributions of nanoparticles, their state of aggregation in solution, and their concentrations with independent validation for example against Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA).

Application Deadline: April 30, 2014