A forthcoming lecture hosted by the Institute of Physics

Professor Pratibha Gai FInstP FREng

Catch me if you can: Atoms in action!

Date: Wednesday 12 November 2014

Venue: Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT (NB new entrance at 80 Portland Place)

Time: 18.30 prompt (registration from 18.00)

Full details about the lecture and speaker can be found in this attached invitation.

The lecture is free to attend and open to all, physicists and non-physicists alike, so please feel free to pass this invitation on to your colleagues, relatives, students or anyone else whom you think would be interested. Places are limited and expected to go quickly, so registration is essential.

Please complete the short registration form at http://publiclectures.iop.org or email [log in to unmask] if you wish to register more than one person.

Prof. Pratibha Gai is the JEOL Professor of Electron Microscopy and co-director of the York Nanocentre at the University of York. After initial education in India, Prof. Gai attended the University of Cambridge, graduating with a PhD in physics from the Cavendish Laboratory, specialising in electron microscopy. She came to the University of York in 2007 and founded the Nanocentre, which she continues to lead. Her research is the result of a scientific career spanning three continents. In recognition of her work she was awarded the L’OREAL-UNESCO Women in Science Award for excellence in the physical sciences as the 2013 Laureate for Europe and is now Chair of the L’Oreal/UNESCO UK Fellowships awards committee. She is a Fellow of both the IOP and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Catalysed chemical reactions are the backbone of many technologies at the heart of modern society. They take place on the molecular and sub-nanometre atomic levels. In this public lecture, Prof. Gai will discuss the new equipment used to help us understand these reactions: the aberration-corrected atomic-resolution environmental transmission electron microscope. She will explain how the microscope has been developed to understand, control and improve live chemical processes, using a more informed understanding of the underpinning physics. She will describe how dynamic experiments are performed inside the microscope under realistic reaction conditions. The microscope enables the human eye to watch how atoms move and catch them in action. It allows us to see how crystal structures change, including sequences of events that lead to the evolution of crystal imperfections that occur during reactions – an ability that is important for medicines, new energy sources and climate control. She will speak about how this new capability contributes to a better understanding of reaction mechanisms, which, in turn, can lead to wide-ranging, societally valuable new science.

This lecture is part of the Opportunity Physics 2014 lecture series, to find out more about Opportunity Physics, please visit www.iop.org/fundraising

We look forward to seeing you at the Institute of Physics.

Angela Townsend

Development Administration & HE Curriculum Support

Institute of Physics

76 Portland Place

London

W1B 1NT

E-mail: [log in to unmask]

Direct tel: +44 (0) 20 7470 4971

www.iop.org

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