Chris Hall awarded ARC Future Fellowship
Exciton Science’s Dr Chris Hall has been awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship to develop new tools to study photochemical systems.
The Future Fellowships program provides four-year fellowships to outstanding Australian mid-career researchers to undertake high-quality research in areas of national and international benefit.
Based within the Ultrafast and Microspectroscopy Laboratories at the University of Melbourne’s School of Chemistry, Chris specialises in using ultrafast electronic and vibrational spectroscopy techniques to resolve excited state processes in semiconductors, proteins and molecular systems.
While the last 40 years has seen many developments in ultrafast techniques, separating and quantifying competing reactions in complex photochemical systems remains a major challenge.
The project Chris has received funding for seeks to overcome this challenge by combining ultrafast electronic and vibrational spectroscopies to open new avenues for spectroscopic investigation of photochemical systems.
This will be used to probe and quantify the reaction pathways of photochemical reactions with ultrafast time-resolution, and with sensitivity to the molecular structure of selected excited-states.
A new level of detail is expected to profoundly enhance our understanding of energy and chemical conversion in complex systems.
Chris said: “I’m ecstatic that the ARC has selected my research project for funding. This funding will allow the development of state-of-the-art ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy techniques in Australia and support research into solutions for leading problems in the material sciences.
“I’m deeply grateful for the support I’ve had from Exciton Science, the Ultrafast Microspectroscopy Laboratory and the School of Chemistry at University of Melbourne over the past three years and I look forward to working with them in the years ahead.”
This project will deliver benefits across research into photochemical systems, including next-generation photovoltaics, organoelectronics, optogenetics and photocatalysis for sustainable transformation of matter.
