The group attended the 44th Condensed Matter and Materials Meeting in Rotorua earlier this month. It was great to be among other solid state researchers and have the chance to catch up with friends and collaborators from across the ditch.
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Summer Super Post
Milestones
With 2019 well underway we have some wonderful milestones to share:
Congratulations to Rosanna and Malin for handing in their master’s theses, and good luck to Arnold who is currently finishing off his Masters research/write-up.
Welcome back to and Patrikk who has just returned to the group to start his own Masters project.
Congratulations to Martin for his recent publication titled “Synthesis and Structural Determination of the Disordered Bixbyite Cu3‐xSb1+xO5.5+3x/2 with Spin‐Glass Behaviour”, covering his research into occupational disorder in ternary copper antimony oxides.
Congratulations also to Andrew for his prize-winningposter Superconducting Sandwiches which wowed viewers at MacDiarmid Institutes AMN9 conference.
A warm welcome to Mark Smith and Ryan Silk who have started their honours research in the group. We also welcome Majid Ali to the group for his doctoral study into metal complexes using computational methods.
Events
UNSW Summer School of Ferroelectrics
Rosanna, Sneh and Martin attended the School of Ferroelectrics in Sydney which was a 5 day school covering the theory and applications of Ferroelectricity (spontaneous and reversible electric polarization in a material). Major applications of ferroelectric materials include tuneable capacitors and data storage.
Wagga 2019 (43rd Condensed Matter Physics Conference)
Tilo and Rosanna attended the annual Wagga conference which focuses on condensed matter and materials research. Rosanna’s team won the pub quiz and were awarded the prestigious Lindsay Davis Cup, following in Tilo’s footsteps whose group won it in 2014.
MacDiarmid AMN9 Conference
Sneh and Andrew attended the AMN9 in Wellington in February and Andrew’s poster on Superconducting Sandwiches won a prize, congratulations!
Round the Bays
Sneh, Tim and honorary group members Shinji, Mansa, Danny and Mike ran the Auckland Round the Bays recently, raising over $1000 for Shine NZ. Mike got 50 min, Tim got 54min (and a nasty sunburn), Sneh got 56min and Danny, Shinji and Mansa got roughly 1hr13min.
Te Aroha Group Walk
A large chunk of the group went for a day trip to Te Aroha, east of Hamilton, for a wonderful day hike (after surviving the trip there); the weather was perfect!
November Superpost
It’s been a wild couple of months with multiple research trips and events attended by the group. We should start though by congratulating Tim for successfully completing his provisional year review and to Patrick for handing in his PgDipSci dissertation.
Söhnel Group Birthday Bash
53.33% of Söhnel group members were born in August, so it seemed fitting to have one big birthday dinner to celebrate them all. This past Saturday evening the group and friends enjoyed a Banquet at the wonderful Tiffin Indian restaurant in Kingsland. Happy birthday and/or thank you all for attending!
Thank you Rosanna for the amazing dark chocolate and raspberry cake!
Synchrotron Far-IR Trip
Sneh and Joe joined Natalija for her Synchrotron IR experiment earlier this month. The Far-Infrared beamline was used to investigate structural changes in Natalija’s Cobalt-Iron Antimony Oxide series of compounds.
Coromandel Daytrip
Some of the Söhnel group splintered off for a trip to Coromandel on the weekend, accompanied by special guests Ramon Quitales, Praveen George Vadakkedath and Marc Söhnel. Everyone braved the wind and rain to check out Cathedral Cove along the eastern coast of the peninsula. (Credit to Ramon for the awesome photos)
From left: Tim, Praveen, Joe, Nat, Martin, Rosanna, Tilo and Marc, Andrea, Ramon
SCS Research Showcase 2018
Well done to all the speakers and presenters at this year’s School of Chemical Sciences Research Showcase. Congratulations to Timothy Christopher from the Söhnel group who was awarded both Second Prize and Audience Choice for his 2 minute talk on Lithium conducting garnets.
MacDiarmid Institute Affiliation
Congratulations to Tilo Söhnel for being been accepted as an Associate Investigator in the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. What does the MacDiarmid Institute do you ask? I think they’ve put it best on their website (which I would recommend checking out):
“The challenges facing New Zealand and the world today – clean water, renewable energy, climate change – will be solved by tomorrow’s scientists and engineers, sitting in our classrooms right now, ready to be inspired. They’ll need new materials and the new technology based on those materials that hasn’t been discovered yet. That’s what the MacDiarmid Institute does. We’re New Zealand’s best scientists, engineers, and educators unified for a common goal – to make, understand, and use new materials to improve people’s lives.”
The New Website
The new Söhnel group website is now live; welcome to all! A brief summary of our members’ research can be found on the group page along with our contact information so please feel free to reach out to us if you are interested in the research that we are doing or if you need help with solid state chemistry matters.