Surfaces and Interfaces Award 2011 Winner

Awarded for his extensive and innovative contributions to the surface science of oxide materials using an interdisciplinary approach employing techniques from physics, chemistry and materials science.

About the Winner

Geoff Thornton studied for his DPhil at Oxford University under the supervision of Tony Orchard and Alan Jacobson. The thesis project combined the use of XPS and neutron scattering in the study of the electronic structure and crystallography of metal oxides studied as powders. An 1851 Research Fellowship took him to UC Berkeley for two years working with Dave Shirley. This involved photoemission measurements at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

In 1979 he took up a lectureship at the University of Manchester where he set up a laboratory to study the electronic structure of oxides using angle resolved photoemission, with complementary measurements at the newly opened Synchrotron Radiation Source at Daresbury Laboratory. In 1988 he was part of a successful bid to establish the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Surface Science at Liverpool and Manchester with an outstation in the form of beamlines at Daresbury.

As IRC Assistant Director, he managed the construction and operation of this facility as well as scanning probe instruments. In 2003 he moved to the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Chemistry Department at UCL as Professor of Physical Chemistry. Research continues to focus on structure/property relations of metal oxide surfaces and nanostructures, although with a shift in emphasis towards solid/liquid interfaces relevant to light harvesting applications.

He has published about 300 papers and has served on a number of editorial advisory boards, including Surface Science. He chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Diamond Light Source 2007-2009. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society as well as the RSC and IOP and was awarded a 2010 ERC Advanced Grant.