News

Professor Jaideep Prabhu introduces Jugaad - a way to create good-enough solutions that employ minimal resourcesProfessor Jaideep Prabhu of the Judge Business School, hosted a Winton teatime discussion where he introduced the concept of Jugaad.  A new approach to innovation that adopts a flexible approach to finding low cost solutions to meet the n…

To maximise the efficiency of solar cells of the future, physicists are taking a leaf out of nature’s bookFocusing on the ancient green sulphur bacteria, Winton Advanced Research Fellows Dr Alex Chin and Dr Nicholas Hine are investigating the early stages of photosynthesis – the process in which plants and some bacteria capture the sun’s light ener…

Winton Scholar, Jan Mertens, wins silver prize for his poster on “Graphene Controls Colour of Plasmonic Nanoantennas” as part of the SET for Britain event in Parliament.Jan presented his physics research to dozens of politicians and a panel of expert judges, as part of the poster competition SET for Britain, on Monday 17 March. His research, which …

A collaboration between Samuel Murphy, at Imperial College London, and Winton Advanced Research Fellow Nicholas Hine, at the Cavendish Laboratory, has investigated the properties of defects in Lithium Metatitanate, Li2TiO3. Li2TiO3 has several promising applications relating to energy materials, including as a cathode material in lithium ion batter…

Prof Ashok Gadgil from Lawrence Berkeley Visits Cambridge to Talk about Energy and the Environment research and how Technology can make a difference to millions of lives of people in developing countries.The Winton Programme was pleased to host the visit of Professor Ashok Gadgil from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).  Professor Gadgil …

Biological physicist joins the Winton ProgrammeDr Ottavio Croze has been appointed, from 1st October 2013, as a Winton Advanced Research Fellow.  Dr Croze is a biological physicist with a background in both theory (PhD in theoretical soft matter) and experiment. He has worked in Biological Physics at University of Edinburgh, Mathematical Biology at…

The Winton Pump-prime scheme at the Cavendish Laboratory has been launched to encourage exploration of new innovate ideas with relevance to the broad field of Sustainability. This scheme is designed to promote speculative, high-risk activities that have the potential for major impact, which otherwise would be difficult to resource.  Following the l…

The first cohort of Winton Scholars have joined the Cavendish to embark on PhD programmes in a range of physics related activities.  Six Scholars have been appointed.  Further details of all the Scholars can be found on the website (Community).Note:  Winton Scholarships will be awarded annually for proposals in the area of Physics of Sustainability…

Latest research finds that the trailblazing ‘perovskite’ material used in solar cells can double up as a laser, strongly suggesting the astonishing efficiency levels already achieved in these cells is only part of the journey.Commercial silicon-based solar cells - such as those seen on the roofs of houses across the country - operate at about 20% e…

Winton Scholar, Jan Mertens, wins silver prize for his poster on “Graphene Controls Colour of Plasmonic Nanoantennas” as part of the SET for Britain event in Parliament.Jan presented his physics research to dozens of politicians and a panel of expert judges, as part of the poster competition SET for Britain, on Monday 17 March. His research, which …

A collaboration between Samuel Murphy, at Imperial College London, and Winton Advanced Research Fellow Nicholas Hine, at the Cavendish Laboratory, has investigated the properties of defects in Lithium Metatitanate, Li2TiO3. Li2TiO3 has several promising applications relating to energy materials, including as a cathode material in lithium ion batter…

Researchers have used in situ NMR combined with density-functional theory calculations to provide insights on the kinetics of lithiation and delithiation in high capacity Si-anode based lithium-ion batteriesUsing a combination of nanotechnology and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, researchers have developed a new probing system that giv…

Collaboration with Microsoft Research produces first results on quantum heat engineA collaboration between Winton Advanced Research Fellow Alex Chin and colleagues at the Cavendish and Stephen Emmott, Head of Computational Science at MSR Cambridge, has produced its first results. In a paper in PRL (Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 253601 (2013) ) they describ…

Winton Scholar Jan Mertens describes how graphene has been used as a spacer with atomic thickness precision to modify plasmonic modesToday`s technology is based on miniaturised structures to realise high performance devices. Nanostructured systems become ever more important. However, processes on these tiny lengths scales are not yet well understoo…

Researchers have been able to tune ‘coherence’ in organic nanostructures due to the surprise discovery of wavelike electrons in organic materials, revealing the key to generating ‘long-lived charges’ in organic solar cells - material that could revolutionise solar energy.By using an ultrafast camera, scientists say they have observed the very first…