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Dr Martijn Zwijnenburg

Materials and Inorganic Chemistry

Dr Martijn Zwijnenburg
Address: Room G19B Department of Chemistry, UCL
Phone No: +44 (0)20 7679 4558
Fax No: +44 (0)20 7679 7463
Extension: 24558
Email: m.zwijnenburg@ucl.ac.uk
Photo of Dr Martijn Zwijnenburg

Research interests

  • Computational photochemistry.
  • Photocatalysis, photoluminescence and other excited state effects.
  • Computational structure prediction and energy landscape exploration.
  • Porous solids/zeolites.

Summary

In my group we use computational methods, for example time-dependent density functional theory, to study what happens in inorganic nanostructures after excitation by light. We try to understand excited-state processes such as photocatalysis and photoluminescence and aim to predict how these are influenced by factors such as the size, shape and composition of a nanostructure. We collaborate closely with experimental groups to complement our theoretical results with experimental verification. As a side-line, we are also interested in structure prediction methods, such as basin-hopping, that allow one to predict the lowest energy geometry for a nanostructure (or periodic solid) given only its composition. We use such methods to generate realistic models of nanostructures, as structural information from experiment is very limited.

Selected Publications

  1. M.A. Zwijnenburg, "Photoluminescence in semiconductor nanoparticles: an atomistic view of excited state relaxation in nanosized ZnS", Nanoscale 4, 3711 (2012).
  2. M.A. Zwijnenburg and S.T. Bromley, “Structural richness of ionic binary materials: An exploration of the energy landscape of magnesium oxide”, Phys. Rev. B 83, 024104 (2011).
  3. M.A. Zwijnenburg, F. Illas and S.T. Bromley, “Apparent Scarcity of Low-Density Polymorphs of Inorganic Solids”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 175503 (2010).
  4. M.A. Zwijnenburg, C. Sousa, A.A. Sokol and S.T. Bromley, “The effect of local environment on photoluminescence: A time-dependent density functional theory study of silanone groups on the surface of silica nanostructures”, J. Chem. Phys. 131, 034705 (2009).
  5. M.A. Zwijnenburg, F. Cora and R.G. Bell, “Dramatic differences between the energy landscapes of SiO2 and SiS2 zeotype materials”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129, 12588 (2007).

All Publications

  • 2000-2004 PhD in Chemical Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
  • 2005-2007 Marie Curie IntraEuropean Research Fellow at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London, UK.
  • 2008-2010 Juan de la Cierva Research Fellow at the University of Barcelona, Barcelona Spain.
  • 2010 EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow at UCL Chemistry