Trinity College Dublin

Research Interests

Our group is made up of 8 postgraduate students and 3 postdoctoral fellows who carry out research on several areas of nano and materials technology. Our main research interests are given below and for a more detailed description, follow this link:

1. Aluminium and rare earth metallasiloxane complexes
2. Magnetic nanoparticles from metallorganic precursors
3. New magnetic fluids for biomedical applications
   (in collaboration with Dr. D. Brougham, DCU)
4. Chemically functionalized carbon nanotubes for polymer reinforcement
   (in collaboration with Prof. W. Blau and Dr. J. Coleman, Physics, TCD)
5. Functionalisation of porous silicon surfaces
   (in collaboration with Drs. A. Moore and T. Perova, Electronics Engineering, TCD)
6. Quantum dots for biomedical applications
   (in collaboration with Prof. J. Donegan - Physics, Prof. Kelleher and Dr.Y. Volkov - Clinical Medicine)
7. Pulsed injection MOCVD for thin film growth

Selected Publications

1. S.J. Byrne, S.A. Corr, T.Y. Rakovich, Y.K. Gun'ko, Y.P. Rakovich, J.F. Donegan, S. Mitchell, Y. Volkov, Optimisation of the synthesis and modification of CdTe quantum dots for enhanced live cell imaging, J. Mater. Chem., 2006, published on line as a hot article, link:
   http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/JM/article.asp?doi=b605333e
2. S. Balakrishnan, Y.K. Gun'ko, T.S. Perova, R.A. Moore, M. Venkatesan, A.P. Douvalis, P. Bourke, Dendrite-Like Self-Assembly of Magnetite Nanoparticles on Porous Silicon, Small, 2006, 7, 864-869.
3. R. Blake, Y.K. Gun'ko, J. Coleman, M. Cadek, A. Fonseca, J.B. Nagy, W. Blau, A generic organometallic approach toward ultra-strong carbon nanotube-polymer composites, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2004, 126 (33), 10226-10227.
4. S.J. Byrne, S.A. Corr, Y.K. Gun'ko, J.M. Kelly, D.F. Brougham, S. Ghosh, Magnetic nanoparticle assemblies on denatured DNA show unusual magnetic relaxivity and potential applications for MRI, Chem. Comm., 2004, 2560-2561.
5. V. Lorenz, S. Gießann, Y.K. Gun'ko, A.K. Fischer, J W. Gilje, and F.T. Edelmann, Fully Metalated Silsesquioxanes: Building Blocks for the Construction of Catalyst Models, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2004, 43, 4603 - 4606