Dr Matt Booth was delighted to supervise two of our undergraduate Physics students over the summer as part of the University of Lincoln ‘UROS’ scheme.

Niall Garry and Robert Sharp were evaluating the effects of compositional perturbations on the optical and electronic properties of colloidal CuInS2 nanocrystals.

We were kindly hosted for two days by Dr Vin Dhanak in the Nanomaterials Characterisation Lab at the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy. Both the valence and core electron states of copper poor CuInS2 and Fe-doped CuInS2 were measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

When under UV illumination the copper poor nanocrystals showed up to an order of magnitude increase in photoluminescence emission, while the Fe-doped suspensions showed a systematic red-shift with increased Fe content (see images below).

Both Niall and Robert are extending the work they undertook during their UROS projects for their third year dissertation projects.