Physical and Structural Chemistry

Research in the field of physical and structural chemistry from the Faculty of Science, University of Melbourne.

Researchers

Brendan Abrahams     Design, synthesis, structure and properties of redox-active and microporous coordination polymers, hydrogen-bonded networks and molecular cages.

Muthupandian Ashokkumar     Cutting-edge research in the areas of ultrasonics and sonochemistry, including fundamental aspects of acoustic cavitation.

Stephen Best     Electrochemistry, spectroelectrochemistry.

Evan Bieske     Optical spectroscopy and MS of trapped nanoparticles, fluorescent nanoparticles, single particle spectroscopy, IR of charged complexes and clusters, molecular anions, photodissociation spectroscopy.

Steven Carnie     Electrokinetics, flow in porous media, hydrodynamics of drops, colloidal interactions, thin film drainage.

Ken Ghiggino     Super-resolution optical imaging methods, ultrafast laser spectroscopy and time-resolved microscopy, applied to study materials including organic photovoltaic, semiconductor nanocrystal and biological materials.

Lars Goerigk     Theoretical and computational quantum chemistry, including development of new quantum-chemical methods, as well as application to organic-, inorganic-, physico- or biochemical problems.

James Hutchison     Laser controlled reactives and spectroscopy.

Guy Jameson     Iron-containing metalloenzymes, kinetics and spectroscopy, Mössbauer spectroscopy.

Spas Kolev     Development of methods and instrumentation for automatic chemical analysis and environmental monitoring; Fabrication and study of polymeric membranes.

Paul Mulvaney     Nanostructured materials, nanoparticles, quantum dots, nanomechanics, AFM, waveguides, ellipsometry, fluorescence, surface plasmon spectroscopy, single particle spectroscopy, exciton emission, plasmonics.

Richard O'Hair     Using mass spectrometry to study gas phase reactions in organic biomolecules and inorganic and organometallic ions.

Frances Separovic     Antimicrobial peptides, membrane biophysics, model membranes, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, solid-state NMR, structural biology.

Trevor Smith     Evanescent wave fluorescence spectroscopy, super-resolution optical microscopy, time-resolved fluorescence microscopy, ultrafast laser spectroscopy.

Alessandro Soncini     Theoretical chemistry for molecular modelling.

Georgina Such     Polymer chemistry, materials science and nanomedicine.

Lei Zhang     Synthesis and structure of coordination complexes including clusters, cages and polymers, with a focus on sustainable energy applications.

Research centres

ARC CoE for Advanced Molecular Imaging
Developing better techniques and technologies to reveal the structure and dynamics of molecular interactions (the Imaging program), and applying these techniques to visualise the response of our immune system (the Immunology program).

ARC CoE for Exciton Science
Researching better ways to manipulate the way light energy is absorbed, transported and transformed in advanced molecular materials.

Research in this area is conducted in the School of Chemistry.