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.

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Latest News

Join our research group!

We are offering a EPSRC DTP PhD Studentship in Chemistry, titled "Solar Energy Materials in Action: Real-time Molecular Movies of Pyroelectric Switching by Time-resolved X-ray Diffraction" - click the link below to read more, make informal enquiries, and apply. We can't wait to hear from you!

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Beamtime at Diamond

The team spent a productive long weekend at i19! Roll on the data processing!

New Diffractometer Installed!

Today Rigaku installed our new Synergy diffractometer! It's equipped with a HyPix detector and a fantastically bright rotating-anode copper source. We can't wait to get even better structures than before!

New publication in Commuications Chemistry

Check out our latest research article, "LED-pump-X-ray-multiprobe crystallography for sub-second timescales", published in Communications Chemistry this month.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42004-022-00716-1

This research showcases the development of our novel pump-multiprobe methodology for the collection of time-resolved molecular movies at millisecond time-resolution, in collaboration with researches at the UK synchrotron facility Diamond Light Source.

This approach now serves at the building block of our new TRIXS (Time Resolved Instrument for X-ray Structures) diffractometer project at Cardiff, which is under development in collaboration with Rigaku Europe thanks to a Cardiff University Research Infrastructure Fund award in 2021.

Check back for future updates on this new facility soon!

"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.

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.

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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