Dr Alan Dunbar
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Senior Lecturer in Energy
Interim Director of Education, Chemical Engineering programme lead
+44 114 222 7551
Full contact details
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Room G56
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
91Ö±²¥
S1 3JD
- Profile
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I am a senior lecturer at the University of 91Ö±²¥. My research interests are in understanding how processing conditions used during fabrication infleunce the performance of nanomaterials used in optoelectronic devices such as solar cells and chemical sensors. I aim to use this undertanding to improve the performance of these devices.
My early education was in Applied Physics at UMIST (Manchester) where I attained an MPhys in Physics with Electronics and a PhD on the `Preparation and characterisation of Silicon – Germanium quantum dots´ After working as a postdoctoral resaercher on projects including carbon nanotubes, metallic nanoclusters, chemical sensors, and organic photovoltaics I was appointed as lecturer in energy in the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of 91Ö±²¥. I have held many leadership roles at department and faculty level as well as externally including First Year Tutor, Postgradaute Research Tutor, Director of Student Support, Facilty Asscess Panel Member (ISIS), Assisant Faculty Director of Learning and Teaching, Academic Director of CDT-PV, Departmental REF Lead, Diamond Peer Review Panel Member (DLS), Department Director of Education and School Chemical Engineering Programme Lead.
- Research interests
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​​​​​​​Optical and electronic properties of nanoscale materials used in applications such as solar cells and chemical sensors. My research investigates how nanoscale materials can be processed from solution to make functional devices and how the conditions used during that processing influence the performance of the devices.
- Perovskite Solar Cells
- Organic Solar Cells
- Chemical Sensors
- Thin Film Solution Processing
- X-ray and Neutron Scattering
- Publications
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Journal articles
- . Solar Energy, 268, 112318-112318.
- . Energy Reports, 9, 5224-5226.
- . ACS Applied Energy Materials, 4(2), 1398-1409.
- . Chemistry of Materials.
- . Langmuir, 36(46), 13843-13852.
- . Journal of Surface Investigation: X-ray, Synchrotron and Neutron Techniques, 14(S1), S60-S68.
- . Advanced Materials Interfaces.
- . ACS Applied Energy Materials, 3(7), 6155-6164.
- . Analytica Chimica Acta, 1105, 1-10.
- . Applied Physics Letters, 116(10).
- . Energy Reports, 6, 132-141.
- . Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 202.
- . Communications Physics, 2(1).
- . Talanta, 199, 40-45.
- . Journal of Applied Phycology.
- . ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
- . Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
- . Royal Society Open Science.
- . Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 254, 669-680.
- . The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.
- . Journal of Materials Research.
- . Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 4(45), 10722-10730.
- . Advanced Functional Materials, 26(27), 4934-4942.
- . Applied Surface Science, 362, 191-201.
- . Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics, 54(2), 141-146.
- . Chemical Engineering Research and Design, 104, 357-366.
- . Organic Electronics, 21, 216-222.
- . Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 3(16), 4007-4015.
- . Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 206, 74-83.
- . Sensors and Actuators, B: Chemical, 202, 854-860.
- . Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics, n/a-n/a.
- . Advanced Functional Materials.
- . Journal of Polymer Science, Part B: Polymer Physics, 51(11), 875-881.
- . Advanced Energy Materials, 3(4), 410-410.
- . Advanced Energy Materials, 3(4), 505-512.
- . Applied Physics Letters, 102(7).
- . The European Physical Journal E, 35(12).
- . Advanced Functional Materials, 22(7), 1321-1321.
- . SOFT MATTER, 8(10), 2807-2811.
- . Advanced Functional Materials, 22(7), 1399-1408.
- . ACS Nano, 5(6), 5124-5131.
- . Adv. Energy Mater., 1(4), 499-504.
- . MACROMOLECULES, 44(8), 2908-2917.
- . MACROMOLECULES, 44(16), 6503-6508.
- . J MATER CHEM, 21(13), 4882-4887.
- . J Phys Chem B, 114(36), 11697-11702.
- . SOFT MATTER, 6(14), 3157-3159.
- . SOFT MATTER, 6(17), 4128-4134.
- . Adv Mater, 22(22), 2444-2447.
- . Eur Phys J E Soft Matter, 31(4), 369-375.
- . J Phys Chem B, 112(36), 11278-11283.
- . SENSOR ACTUAT B-CHEM, 128(2), 468-481.
- . Langmuir, 23(4), 1759-1767.
- Experimental and simulational study of the operation conditions for a high transmission mass filter. Review of Scientific Instruments, 78(5).
- . J Phys Chem B, 110(33), 16646-16651.
- Morphological differences between Bi, Ag and Sb nano-particles and how they affect the percolation of current through nano-particle networks. European Physical Journal D, 39(3), 415-422.
- Construction and application of a UHV compatible cluster deposition system. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 8(3-4), 405-416.
- Optical changes induced in Zn porphyrin solutions and LB films by exposure to amines. J PORPHYR PHTHALOCYA, 10(7), 978-985.
- Templated cluster assembly for production of metallic nanowires in passivated silicon V-grooves. Microelectronic Engineering, 73-74, 583-587.
- Formation of Electrically Conducting Mesoscale Wires Through Self-Assembly of Atomic Clusters. IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, 3(1 SPEC. ISS.), 61-66.
- Templated-assembly of conducting antimony cluster wires. Nanotechnology, 15(9), 1382-1387.
- . Journal of Luminescence, 108(1-4), 329-332.
- Electrical measurements of nanoscale bismuth cluster films. European Physical Journal D, 24(1-3), 291-294.
- Strain seeding of Ge quantum dots grown on Si (001). Physica Status Solidi (B) Basic Research, 224(1), 257-260.
- Three-dimensional compositional analysis of quantum dots. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 34(4), 636-644.
- The effect of strain field seeding on the epitaxial growth of Ge islands on Si(001). Applied Physics Letters, 78(12), 1658-1660.
- Structural, compositional and optical properties of self-organised Ge quantum dots. Physica Status Solidi (B) Basic Research, 224(1), 265-269.
- . MRS Advances, 638, f14.5.1.
- Electron diffraction and Raman studies of the effect of substrate misorientation on ordering in the AlGaInP system. Journal of Applied Physics, 85(1), 199-202.
- Erbium photoluminescence in sol-gel derived titanium dioxide films. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 3725, 239-242.
- . Advanced Materials Interfaces, 2102324-2102324.
- . Journal of Visualized Experiments(83).
- . Journal of Visualized Experiments(83).
- . Energy and Environmental Science, 7(9), 2944-2950.
- . Engineering Proceedings, 6(1), 29-29.
Conference proceedings papers
- . Energy Reports, Vol. 8(11) (pp 89-106). 91Ö±²¥, UK, 5 April 2022 - 6 April 2022.
- . Energy Reports, Vol. 8(11) (pp 74-82), 5 April 2022 - 6 April 2022.
- . Energy Reports, Vol. 8(Suppl_11) (pp 23-33). 91Ö±²¥, UK, 5 April 2022 - 6 April 2022.
- . Proceedings of the International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
- . Proceedings of the International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
- . Energy Reports, Vol. 7(Suppl 2) (pp 71-80). Virtual conference, 12 January 2021 - 13 January 2021.
- . Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of Energy Harvesting, Storage, and Transfer (EHST'18) (pp 116-1-116-10). Niagara Falls, Canada, 7 June 2018 - 9 June 2018.
- . COLLOIDS AND SURFACES A-PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING ASPECTS, Vol. 284 (pp 339-344)
- . COLLOIDS AND SURFACES A-PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING ASPECTS, Vol. 284 (pp 345-349)
- Assembly of bismuth clusters into nanowires using etched V-grooves as templates. Conference on Optoelectronic and Microelectronic Materials and Devices, Proceedings, COMMAD (pp 327-330)
- . ICMENS (pp 350-356)
- Formation of electrically conducting mesoscale wires through self-assembly of atomic clusters. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol. 5118 (pp 411-420)
- Formation of Nanowires at the Percolation Threshold in Rectangular 2D Systems. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol. 5055 (pp 189-203)
- Studies of compositional variations in germanium quantum dots grown on silicon. Materials Research Society Symposium - Proceedings, Vol. 638 (pp F1451-F1456)
- Investigations of ordering in AlGaInP. MICROSCOPY OF SEMICONDUCTING MATERIALS 1997(157) (pp 257-260)
- . Proceedings of the International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics, 12 May 2024 - 15 May 2024.
- . Proceedings of the MATSUS Fall 2023 Conference, 16 October 2023 - 20 October 2023.
- Teaching activities
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- Programme Lead Chemical Engineering
- Module Lead CPE451 Low carbon energy, science and technology
- Module Lead CPE6000 Low carbon energy, science and technology
- Professional activities and memberships
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- IOP Member
- IChemE Associate Member
- Diamond Light Source Peer Review Panel Member