My research is about an old molecule, the phthalocyanine, which I started working on from day one of my PhD, 13 years ago, and am still fascinated in.  I will probably still try to solve some of its mysteries when I retire!  Actually I am only one of the many hundreds of researchers interested in this molecule, and there is even a monthly journal dedicated to it.  The key to its success is that it is truly multitasking, and is still now relevant to the most advanced scientific research topics and technological developments, e.g. flexible solar panels or quantum information.  Yet at the same time, it is produced on an industrial scale to be used as a cheap blue-green pigment.  Some people once asked ironically whether it could also cure cancer, and believe it or not, it is being researched for photodynamic cancer therapy!

The easiest way to understand the appeal of phthalocyanine is to recognise that it is very similar to another very hard-working molecule:  chlorophyll.  I tried to convey the idea with good old transparencies overlapping the two structures and this seemed to grab the audience’s attention.  Chlorophyll is one of the main ingredients of photosynthesis, whereby sunlight is transformed into energy for plants.  Now this sounds very much like a solar cell, a device that features very high on the agenda of renewable energy.  At this point I ran through a few numbers of solar energy hitting the earth, the conclusion of which is that we’d only need to cover about one tenth of the Sahara with 10% efficient solar cells to satisfy the world’s current energy needs.

Obviously you’d want to know why we need to worry about new materials for solar panels when the existing silicon ones are already doing a pretty good job.  There are specific advantages to the molecular approach, e.g. that the active layers can be easily and cheaply deposited (thanks to my transparencies we got talking about inkjet printing which is actually applicable to deposit some analogue materials) and onto virtually any substrates, e.g. lightweight and flexible plastics.  Or windows, or roofs, or cars – these suggestions were all made by the audience who started to get very excited.  And indeed, these ideas are part of some of the very latest research projects going on around the world, so it was great to see so much intuition from the public!

The supercomputer part is the latest project we’re working on, and relies on just one atom of the molecule.  This atom can have spin, i.e. it behaves like a magnet, and in an ordered structure can “talk” to its neighbours in specific ways.  Our vision is that each of these atoms is the analogue of the “bit” of information that we’re familiar with, but that it would much smaller.  Also, the information could be transmitted in more efficient ways to those currently used.  We are getting used to the comfort of ever smaller and more efficient computers, but for these developments to be sustained radically new materials need to be found.  This could be one of the solutions.  Much work remains to be done, and at the moment we can only demonstrate preliminary results at unrealistically low temperatures. But I remain hopeful that this research could have real impact a few years down the line.  I’m very fortunate to work with great collaborators on this project, especially experts in magnetism and theoretical analysis across the London Centre for Nanotechnology.  They are crucial in helping us make sense of some of the results we are getting, and steering the research into exciting new avenues.

The hour on the box was exhausting but rewarding as my worst fears of empty pavement were not realised.  Hopefully some of the far-fetched ideas that are just incubating now will be recognised in real products by the audience in a not-too distant future…

Dr Sandrine Heutz is a researcher in the Department of Materials at the Imperial College London

She is working with the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Programme and The Zoological Society of London to encourage more young women to pursue careers in science. www.womeninscience.co.uk