Electrochemical energy storage
Batteries
Lithium-ion, sodium-ion and metal-sulfur electrode materials.
Research
Four primary directions: batteries, supercapacitors, materials for single-photon emission and soft matter.
Primary programme
Research directions
Each direction below includes scope, methods and DOI-linked publications.
Electrode materials
Supercapacitors
Transition-metal sulfide electrodes and dopant-dependent electrochemical performance.
Photon-emitter materials
Single-photon emission
Quantum dots, defect states, excitons and optical transitions in candidate emitter materials.
Soft condensed matter
Soft matter
Colloidal glasses, gels, interfaces, yielding and nonequilibrium transitions.
Batteries
Research combines first-principles calculations, materials synthesis and electrochemical characterisation for lithium-ion, sodium-ion and room-temperature metal-sulfur systems.
- Nickel-rich lithium-ion cathodes
- P2-type sodium-lithium-manganese oxide cathodes
- MXene hosts for lithium-sulfur and sodium-sulfur batteries
- Two-dimensional anodes and directional ion transport
Selected related publications
Modified Coprecipitation Synthesis of Nickel-Rich NMC for Lithium-Ion Batteries ACS Omega, 2023 Electric field enhances the electronic and diffusion properties of penta-graphene nanoribbon anodes in lithium-ion batteries RSC Advances, 2024 Resolving adsorption mechanism of sodium polysulfides on Tim+1CmO2 MXenes for sodium-sulfur batteries Applied Surface Science, 2025 Co-doping aluminum and boron enhances nickel-rich cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries Dalton Transactions, 2025 Transition-metal and fluorine co-doping in sodium-lithium-manganese oxide cathodes Dalton Transactions, 2025
Supercapacitors
Research examines how composition and dopant engineering modify electronic structure, charge-transfer behaviour and electrochemical response in transition-metal sulfide electrodes.
- NiCo2S4 electrode materials
- Manganese doping and electronic structure
- Specific capacitance and cycling stability
- Combined computational and electrochemical analysis
Single-photon emission
Research evaluates quantum-confined and low-dimensional materials for photon-emitter applications through calculations of defect states, excitons, radiative transitions, optical response and charge transport.
- Graphene and phosphorene quantum dots
- Defect, edge-functionalisation and dopant effects
- Excitonic structure and interlayer interactions
- Optical transitions in quantum-confined materials
Reported evidence covers electronic, optical and excitonic properties. Single-photon purity was not measured in these studies.
Selected related publications
Electronic and optical properties of edge-functionalized penta-graphene quantum dots AIP Advances, 2022 Stacking-order-dependent excitonic properties in bulk ReS2 ACS Photonics, 2023 Optoelectronic properties of nitrogen-doped hexagonal graphene quantum dots ACS Omega, 2024 Polaronic defect effects in blue phosphorene quantum dots Computational Materials Science, 2024 Photon recycling in CsPbBr3 all-inorganic perovskite nanocrystals ACS Photonics, 2021
Soft matter
Research addresses equilibrium and nonequilibrium behaviour in colloidal glasses, gels and interfaces. Experiments, scattering, rheology and molecular simulations connect particle-scale structure to mechanical and thermodynamic response.
- Yielding, shear banding and mechanical failure
- Free-energy landscapes under deformation
- Critical Casimir forces and colloidal self-assembly
- Gelation, interfaces and structural transitions
Selected related publications
Visualizing the Structural Solid-Liquid Transition at Colloidal Crystal/Fluid Interfaces Advanced Materials, 2011 Resolving structural modifications of colloidal glasses by combining x-ray scattering and rheology Scientific Reports, 2013 Shear Banding of Colloidal Glasses: Observation of a Dynamic First-Order Transition Physical Review Letters, 2014 Gelation of Anisotropic Colloids with Short-Range Attraction VNU Journal of Science: Mathematics - Physics, 2020 Measuring the free energy of hard-sphere colloidal glasses Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 2022Methods
First-principles modelling
Density functional theory for electronic structure, adsorption, transport and optical response.
Molecular simulation
Particle-scale dynamics for colloidal transitions, mechanics and self-assembly.
Data-guided analysis
Neural-network models for selected analyses of cathode stability and electronic properties.
Experimental methods and synthesis
Rheology, microscopy, scattering, materials synthesis, cell fabrication and electrochemical characterisation.