Watching Chemistry Happen
Welcome to the Hatcher Research Group
Dr Lauren E Hatcher
Royal Society University Research Fellow
Cardiff University School of Chemistry
In the Hatcher Research Group we investigate how the atomic-scale structure of functional materials is responsible for their useful properties, with particular emphasis on light-responsive systems. We use a combination of in-situ and time-resolved structural chemistry techniques to follow how photoactive crystalline materials respond to irradiation, aiming to watch chemistry happen in 3D and in real time. We then take this knowledge back into the research lab and use it to design new crystals with enhanced functionality. To learn more about our research check out our website, or contact us for further information.
Latest News
Join our research group in 2025!
We are currently advertising a Competitive EPSRC funded PhD studentship in "Solar SFX: Real-time molecular movies of solar cell photosensitizers by serial femtosecond crystallography". For more information please follow the link below and APPLY by 14th MARCH 2025.
New publication in Commuications Chemistry
Check out our latest research article, "Small-rotative fixed-target serial synchrotron crystallography (SR-FT-SSX) for molecular crystals" published in the November 2024 issue of Nature Communications Chemistry.
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​​This article showcases our new approach for the collection of serial crystallography data that enables the ab initio unit cell determination and structure solution of even unknown crystal structures from "small molecule" systems with small unit cell parameters. This study has been developed in collboration with Beamline I19 at the UK synchrotron Diamond Light Source, and we hope will pave the way for many more small molecule crystal systems to be studied by multi-crystal serial synchrotron crystallography approaches on I19 in the near future.
BCA Spring Meeting success in 2024
The group made several important contributions to the British Crystallographic Association Spring Meeting at the University of Leeds in April 2024. Ben and Sam both gave oral presentations summarising their work on photocrystallography and serial crystallography developments, and new PhD student Debashish Das presented a poster summarising the start of his research project in the group. Sam Lewis received not one, but two prizes at the conference dinner, a record for any student at the conference in recent memory! Much fun was had with colleagues in the wider UK crystallography community at what is alway a fantastic, supportive and inclusive celebration of UK crystallographic research talent.
Beamtime at Diamond
The team spent a productive long weekend at i19! Roll on the data processing!
"HOT" article now out in CrystEngComm
We're excited to announce new research from the group has been added to the CrystEngComm's quarterly "HOT" article collection.
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The paper "Exploring the influence of polymorphism and chromophore co-ligands on linkage isomer photoswitching in [Pd(bpy4dca)(NO2)2]" explores the challenges of designing photoswitchable molecules that themselves contain strong chromaphore ligands.
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For more information, check out the article here: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/ce/d2ce00213b
Spring Meeting of the British Crystallography Association (Leeds, UK)
The group attended their first in-person conference, the Spring Meeting of the British Crystallography Association in Leeds. Ben presented a poster summarising some of his work with photocrystallography, and Josh gave a fantastic talk focussing on some exciting results from Diamond.
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