The RADICAL project is a collaboration between multidisciplinary partners across Europe including University College of Cork (Ireland), HZDR (Germany), University of York (United Kingdom), National Technical University of Athens (Greece), Smartcom (Bulgaria) and UCC Academy (Ireland).
In this article, we introduce our partners at University College Cork’s Materials Chemistry and Analysis Group (MCAG), who coordinate the RADICAL project.
The MCAG Group, led by Prof. Justin Holmes, is primarily based within the School of Chemistry at UCC. The primary research focus of MCAG is to develop functional and sustainable nanomaterials and devices for electronics, optoelectronics, energy harvesting, energy storage, catalysis, and plastic recycling.
MCAG is a large interdisciplinary research group and houses researchers from different research backgrounds such as synthetic chemistry, surface chemistry, materials chemistry and physics, and nanoelectronics.
MCAG has published more than 50 research articles in reputed journals on the fabrication and surface functionalisation of nanomaterials, exploration of physical (including electrical transport in nanostructure) and chemical properties of nanomaterials, and nanomaterial devices.
Role in RADICAL
This varied and multidisciplinary expertise within MCAG is crucial for the successful implementation of functionalised nanowire based transistors for atmospheric radical detection.
UCC MCAG researchers will use this expertise to assist HZDR and University of York in the development of appropriate nanowire transistor device and functionalisation approaches for •OH and •NO3 radical detection.
With its in-house facilities, MCAG researchers will also provide general materials and chemical analysis including SEM, TEM, AFM, surface IR and Raman, PL measurements as well as electrical measurements.
Along with the help of CRAC Lab researchers, MCAG will electrically test and optimise the functionalised arrays of Si nanowire transistor devices for atmospheric radical detection in synthetic and ambient air.
The MCAG team working on RADICAL include:
Prof. Justin Holmes – Professor of Nanochemistry, School of Chemistry, UCC
Dr. Subhajit Biswas – Senior Research Fellow, School of Chemistry, UCC
Vaishali Vardhan – PhD researcher, School of Chemistry, UCC
