Research Group

The people that make the magic happen

Dr. Andrea Vezzoli
Principal Investigator

Andrea graduated (MSc.) in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Padova in 2010, and worked at the academia/industry interface for two years before starting his PhD studies with Prof. Simon J. Higgins at the University of Liverpool. After finishing his PhD in 2015, he stayed in Liverpool for a postdoctoral position with Prof. Richard J. Nichols, and in 2019 he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship to study emissive phenomena in single-entity electronic devices, thus starting his independent career.

When Andrea is not trying to poison himself by drinking too much coffee or ruining other people's experiments in the laboratory, he can be usually found playing old-school death metal on his guitar, trying to compose the next '80-style technopop hit on his computer, or reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to his lovely daughters.

2023 - Readership in Physical Chemistry
2023 - ERC StG / UKRI Frontier Research Award
2021 - Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
2020 - EPSRC New Investigator Award
2019 - Royal Society University Research Fellowship

Contacts:  

Dr. Amit Sil
Research Coordinator 2024-
PDRA 2021-2024

Amit obtained his M.Sc in Chemistry from IIT Kharagpur (India) in 2012. His master thesis was focused on synthesis and catalytic studies of active Sn(0) nano-particles for Barbier reaction. He was awarded a PhD degree (2018) from IIT Kharagpur under the supervision of Dr. S. K. Patra. His PhD work was focused on synthesis and characterization of functional polypyridyl conjugates to access NIR absorbing materials, sensory applications and soluble emissive polymers. He then stayed in the same group for a short-postdoctoral position on the topic of developing metallocene catalyst for olefin polymerisation. In 2019 he moved to Durham University (UK) as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof J. A. Gareth Williams, where he worked on synthesis and characterization of functional luminescent Pt(II) or Ir(III) complexes for near-infrared organic light-emitting diodes (NIR–OLEDs).

After that, in October 2021, he moved to University of Liverpool (UK) for a postdoctoral position to work in the field of single molecular electronics and, in particular, to investigate the piezoresistive properties of molecular devices. In 2024, he was promoted to a research coordinator position. In his spare time Amit loves travelling and watching movies and web series.

Dr. Chongguang Liu
PDRA 2021-

Chongguang completed his BSc and MSc in materials science and engineering at the University of Manchester in 2016. His master dissertation was focused on the inkjet printing of 2D materials. After graduation, he stayed in Manchester and started a PhD working on thin films of nanostructured materials for flexible electronics under the supervision of Prof. Brian Derby and Prof W. W. Sampson. Specifically, he investigated the failure mechanisms of silver nanowires (Ag NWs) networks under bending environment.

After that, in November 2021, he moved to the University of Liverpool for a PDRA position to work in the field of single-molecule electronics.

Dr. Xiaohang Qiao
PDRA 2023-

Xiaohang obtained her MSc degree in Chemistry from the University of Liverpool in 2018, where she focused on a research project on molecular-scale energy conversion under the supervision of Prof. Mathias Brust. From 2019 to 2023, she is dedicated to her PhD studies in the field of molecular electronics under the supervision of Prof. Richard Nichols and Prof. Simon Higgins. Her PhD work mainly focus on the single molecular junctions with STM break junction technique and electrochemical gating. She also worked on large area measurements on self-assembly monolayers. After graduation, she obtained a PDRA position to continue her research in this area.

Dr. Linlin Hou
PDRA 2024-

Linlin obtained her BSc in Polymer Materials and Engineering from Zhejiang University and her MSc in Advanced Materials from Imperial College London. Following this, she completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Jamie Warner, focusing on 2D material-based electronic and optoelectronic devices. Her DPhil studies involved the growth and characterization of 2D thin film materials, as well as the nanofabrication and measurements of 2D material-based nanodevices, such as field-effect transistors (FETs), photodetectors, light-emitting devices (LEDs), and photovoltaic devices. In January 2024, she moved to the University of Liverpool for a PDRA position and started her research on Molecular Photonics.

Mr. James Morris
PhD Student 2020-
MSc 2019-2020

James completed his BSc in Chemistry from Keele University in 2019. He came to the University of Liverpool for his MSc in Advanced Chemical Sciences where his research project was on the frequency domain analysis of single-molecule conductance data under the supervision of Dr Andrea Vezzoli.

He stayed on at Liverpool and, in 2020, he started his PhD on the synthesis and analysis of ligand-decorated metal nanoclusters for molecular electronics and photonics.

Mr. Marco F. Gatto
PhD Student 2020-

Marco obtained his M. Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Messina in 2017. His thesis project focussed on the study of nanostructured systems for the photocatalytic water oxidation, under the supervision of Prof. Fausto Puntoriero. After his graduation, he worked on hydrogen storage in solid systems for Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto di Tecnologie Avanzate per l’Energia under the supervision of Dr. Rolando Pedicini, spending September to December 2019 in Stuttgart at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, in the research team of Dr. Michael Hirscher.

In 2020, he then started his PhD at the University of Liverpool within the Molecular Devices group. His PhD project focuses on synthesis of organometallic compounds and the characterisation of their electronic properties for thermoelectric conversion.

Mr. Tom Abram
PhD Student 2023-
Summer Bursary 2023
MChem 2022-2023

Tom graduated with a masters in chemistry from the university of Liverpool in July of 2023 completing a six month project under prof. Alessandro Troisi simulating a polymerisation reaction using the monte Carlo method before being offered a summer placement to continue the work. During his fourth year, he completed his dissertation project under Andrea's supervision in the design, simulation, and fabrication of nano electrodes for the maximisation of plasmonic properties and integration into MCBJ devices. As of October 2023, Tom has started his PhD, continuing his fourth year work as well taking on other projects under Andrea's guidance.

Mx. Ruby Barry
PhD Student 2024-

Ruby graduated with a masters in chemistry from the University of Central Lancashire in 2022. This work concluded with a year long project working on the synthesis and characterisation of super paramagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for use in DNA/RNA binding and elution. Following this they completed a PGDE in secondary science education at LJMU graduating in 2023. Immediately after this they spent 6 months working in the industrial waste management industry until January 2024.

As of February 2024, Ruby has started their PhD, working on the synthesis of single molecules for the molecular electronics group, under Andrea’s supervision.

ALUMNI

James Burrows 3rd year project
2022-2023
Calum Thomas 4th year project
2020-2021
Eleanor Barrett 4th year project
2019-2020