The Hinshelwood Lectures 2022

The Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory is delighted to announce that the 2022 Hinshelwood Lectures will be delivered by Professor Michael R Wasielewski from Northwestern University USA.

The title of the series will be:

Exploring and Exploiting Quantum Coherence in Molecular Systems for Solar Energy Conversion and Quantum Information Science.

Each of the six lectures will be held at 11.15 am in weeks 4, 5 & 6 of Trinity Term in the Main Lecture Theatre in the PTCL.  Details of each lecture are given below.  For those who will be unable to attend in person, we will be using the Lecture Capture System and a link to this is here. 

Lecture 1: Tuesday, 17 May.  Singlet Fission as a Pathway to Enhanced Solar Cell Performance

Lecture 2: Thursday, 19 May.  Photo-driven Charge Separation and Transport in Molecular Solids

Lecture 3: Tuesday, 24 May.  Radical Ion Excited States as Super-Redox Agents for Artificial Photosynthesis

Lecture 4: Thursday, 26 May.  Photo-generated Two-Spin Qubit Systems

Lecture 5: Tuesday, 31 May.  Photo-generated Three- and Four-Spin Qubit Systems

Lecture 6: Thursday, 2 June.  Chirality Effects on Electron Transfer and Spin Dynamics

The Lectures (generously sponsored by Refeyn Ltd) will be presented in the PTCL Main Lecture Theatre at 11.15 am. They will be of particular interest to researchers and senior undergraduates.

Michael R. Wasielewski is currently the Clare Hamilton Hall Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern, and Director of the Center for Molecular Quantum Transduction, a US-DOE Energy Frontier Research Center. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. His research has resulted in over 750 publications and focuses on light-driven processes in molecules and materials, artificial photosynthesis, molecular electronics, quantum information science, ultrafast optical spectroscopy, and time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy.

His honours and awards include membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Josef Michl American Chemical Society Award in Photochemistry; the Porter Medal for Photochemistry; the Royal Society of Chemistry Physical Organic Chemistry Award; the Royal Society of Chemistry Environment Prize; the James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society; the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society; the Bruker Prize in EPR Spectroscopy; the International EPR Society Silver Medal in Chemistry; the Chemical Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Chemists, and the Humboldt Research Award.