Dr Sebastian Gorgon

BSc, MRes, PhD

Research Fellow

Biography

I am a Research Fellow in Physics at Emmanuel College. Prior to this, I did my PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory and was a Bye-Fellow and College Teaching Associate at Downing College, teaching Parts IA and IB of the Natural Sciences Tripos.

I grew up in the industrial Silesia region of south-west Poland, where excellent teachers kindled my interest in science. I came to London to do my A-Levels, supported by the Polish Children’s Fund. The city suited me well, so I stayed there for three more years to study a best-of-both-worlds’ degree called Chemical Physics at UCL. I broke this up with a 12 month stint in the Oxfordshire countryside to work at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, where I got started playing with powerful lasers. I came to Cambridge to do a masters in nanotechnology, where I was funded jointly by Christ’s College and the NanoDTC. I then joined the group of Prof Sir Richard Friend, where I have been taking advantage of fantastic opportunities to develop new research directions.

My scientific interests centre on understanding what happens in materials when they interact with light. I use extremely short and bright flashes of laser light to track the flow of energy through molecules in real time. I mainly focus on small carbon-based molecules, a family which has already found success in commercial products. However instead of displays, I am engineering them towards applications in quantum information science, where they are uniquely well placed to act as miniature, ultra-precise sensors. In my work I make frequent visits to the Centre for Advanced Electron Spin Resonance at the University of Oxford, where I interrogate my molecules with a powerful, complementary technique.

During my fellowship I will lead a research stream centred on exploiting the properties of radicals which emit light, through which we can directly probe their quantum mechanical spin. These unique molecules offer rare advantages of room temperature operation and Lego-like tunability via chemical synthesis. I look forward to joining the Emmanuel community, learning from those around me and sharing my passions. Beyond the lab, I enjoy cycling, cooking and contemporary classical music.

Teaching Interests

Condensed Matter Physics, Optics, Quantum Mechanics

Research

Published papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m9T5W9zqOcsC

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