Image: Jonathan Coleman
Trinity’s head of physics Prof Jonathan Coleman wishes he had more time for blue-sky thinking to develop out-of-this-world advanced materials.
Earlier this year, Prof Jonathan Coleman and his research team published a paper which demonstrates the use of advanced materials for building structures in outer space. Using synthetic materials created to resemble lunar and Martian regolith (loose deposits of dust, broken rocks and other materials), and advanced materials known as carbon nanotubes, the team were able to create solid ‘bricks’ with “excellent mechanical properties”.
“We have demonstrated a process that allows small quantities of carbon nanotubes to be used to convert powders such as lunar or Martian soil into building materials that can monitor their own structural health,” Coleman said at the time. “These composites may be a key component in the building of the first semi-permanent bases on the moon, Mars or beyond.”
Coleman is a professor of materials science and head of the School of Physics at Trinity College Dublin and a principal investigator at the Amber Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research.
He completed his undergraduate and PhD degrees at Trinity, before becoming a junior lecturer in 2001 and rising to chair of chemical physics in 2011. He has held his current position since 2022. He is Ireland’s most cited materials scientist, with more than 100,000 citations, and is a global leader in liquid processing of graphene and other nanomaterials.
Here, Coleman gives an insight into the current directions of his research.
Tell us about your current research.
My research is based around the production of two-dimensional materials in liquids. This is useful because liquid-based processing methods tend to be scalable and so suitable for conversion into industrial processes. Liquid-based processing is also very versatile – once you have nanomaterials in a liquid you can do lots of stuff with them. For example, if you want to make a film of nanomaterials and you have them dispersed in liquid, then it’s very easy to make the film using standard printing technology.
‘Given the climate crisis and the need to move away from fossil fuels, it is more important than ever to develop new batteries’
A lot of my work over the last decade has been finding applications for the nanomaterials that we have made using liquid processing. A lot of the work we have been doing has focused on – making strong and conductive composites, for example from mixtures of polymer and graphene; making highly sensitive strain sensors out of graphene nanosheets; using a combination of different nanomaterials to make high-performance battery electrodes; and using nanomaterials to print low-cost electronic devices.
The last area is probably where the focus is on right now in my group. We have a number of European grants to study the development of printed electronic materials using nanomaterials. The idea here is that printed electronics allows us to make electronic devices that are super cheap. However, it was always believed that the trade-off was that they would also have relatively poor performance. The idea of using nanomaterials is that one can make printed electronic devices that are cheap but have relatively high performance. However, printing high-performance electronic devices, for example transistors, from nanomaterials is very challenging and requires a huge amount of optimisation. That’s what my group is doing at the moment.
We are definitely making some progress. We have recently made printed transistors from a two-dimensional material called MoS2, that have electronic mobility (a measure of how fast the transistor switches) that is roughly four times the ‘state of the art’ for traditional printed devices.
In your opinion, why is your research important?
A significant portion of our work is on producing high-performance battery electrodes. The idea is to develop ways to make batteries that can store more energy and, importantly, can be charged as quickly as possible. Obviously, this is important for batteries for electric vehicles.
We have been developing new materials for batteries and studying the fundamental physics of battery operation in order to improve our understanding of the factors limiting battery performance. We aim to use that understanding to improve performance. I would class this as important research. Given the climate crisis and the need to move away from fossil fuels, it is more important than ever to develop new batteries with improved capability.
What inspired you to become a researcher?
When I was young, I certainly didn’t dream of becoming a researcher. In school, I actually found physics quite easy and enjoyed it. This led to me studying physics as an undergraduate at Trinity. I really liked college so I decided to stay for a postgrad. Later I applied for a lectureship with the aim of getting some interview experience and was amazed to be offered a job. The rest is history!
What are some of the biggest challenges or misconceptions you face as a researcher in your field?
I am now the head of physics in Trinity. This is a nearly full-time job. It is extremely difficult to find time to focus on research. What I find most difficult is to find the time to really do blue-sky thinking to come up with new research directions.
Do you think public engagement with science and data has changed in recent years?
I think that since Covid-19, the general public has a better idea that science can solve important problems. However, that positive development has been somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that there seems to be large amounts of misinformation on the web regarding science. This is a serious problem that we all have a responsibility to try to address.
How do you encourage engagement with your own work?
The short answer to this question is that I don’t do nearly enough work to encourage engagement with my own research even though I realise how important this is. The reason is simple – there just aren’t enough hours in the day. This is really quite unfortunate as outreach and public engagement are things that I quite enjoy and feel that I’m not too bad at.
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