Nick is Professor of Chemical Physics at Imperial College, London. His group conducts theoretical and experimental research in the general area of nanomaterials with particular interest in their interaction with biomaterials and bionanotechnology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Institute of Nanotechnology, Editor-in-Chief of the international Journals, Molecular Simulation, and the Journal of Experimental Nanoscience.
The Yaliraki group is interested in the emergent properties of self-assembling systems in confined environments. Examples from biology include the mechanisms of fibril and viral capsid formations. Another area of interest is the electronic properties of molecular scale junctions. A unifying theme of our work is how geometry and topology affect the dynamics of systems at different scales. Emphasis is on coarse-graining and system reduction approaches.
Professor Sutton is a materials physicist who applies fundamental physics to understand and predict the structure and properties of materials of technological significance. His interests are at the interface between condensed matter physics and materials science. His work involves theory spanning classical and quantum mechanics, elastic field theory of defects and their interactions in solids, transport of atoms, electrons and heat in solids, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, electronic structure and interatomic forces.
Professor Horsfield's research focuses on electrons that are out of equilibrium. There are several active projects at the moment. A long standing one is to understand structural materials for hydrogen fusion power plants: the electrons are taken out of equilibrium by fast particles that collide with the walls. A major focus at the moment is the aqueous corrosion of metals. This includes the atomistic simulation of reactions at electrodes under a bias.