2022

  • Bartomeu wins the 2022 Young Researcher in Theoretical Physics Prize presented by the Spanish Royal Society of Physics and the BBVA Foundation. The Prize has been presented annually since 1968, and you can read more about this here (in Spanish).

  • Siyu Chen wins the 2023 Abdus Salam Prize in Computational Physics, presented annually to recognise outstanding work by a PhD student in the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge. Siyu has received the prize for his work on Nonuniform grids for Brillouin zone integration and interpolation. Read more about this here.

  • Arjun Ashoka wins the 2023 Cavendish Prize in Experimental Physics, presented annually to recognise outstanding work by a PhD student in the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge. Arjun has received the prize for his work on Quantum processes in disordered materials. Read more about this here.

  • Ivona Bravić successfully defends her PhD thesis. The work explores the role of disorder, both static and dynamic, on the optoelectronic properties of semiconductors. Highlights include the microscopic understanding of how doping perovskite nanocrystals can be used to control their light emission properties, and the role of dynamic disorder in the optoelectronic properties of BiOI, a record-sensitivity X-ray detector material. Ivona will continue her excellent work in the energy area at LBD-Beratungsgesellschaft. Good luck!

  • Dr Yun Liu has started a new position as a Research Scientist at the Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore. He can be reached at this email address. Good luck Yun!




  • Bo Peng wins a Poster Commendation at the Psi-K 2022 Conference. Commendations have been awarded to 60 posters among the 715 presented. Bo has received the prize for his work on Non-Abelian braiding of phonons, and you can read more about this research in these papers: Nature Communications, Physical Review B. Congratulations!

  • Bo Peng wins a 2021 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad, presented annually by the China Scholarship Council to recognise outstanding Chinese students all over the world. Congratulations Bo!




  • Alan Bowman wins the Woodruff Thesis Prize of the Institute of Physics for the best thesis in the field of thin film and surface science. Alan's thesis studied new materials for solar cells with a comprehensive approach including both experimental and theoretical work. Alan is currently working as a Postdoc at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, investigating the conversion of CO2 to other chemicals using nanoparticles. Congratulations!

  • We receive a Programme Grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of a team of Cambridge and Oxford scientists. The award of £8.6 million will support research on transport phenomena in a wide range of materials, using both experimental and computational techniques. You can read more about this here.

  • We receive a Critical Mass Grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of a team of theorists across several Cambridge departments. The award of £3.7 million will support research on theory of condensed matter with a particular focus on dynamical phenomena. You can read more about this here.

  • Bo Peng is awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at Magdalene College Cambridge. This is a prestigious three-year position that will allow Bo to start his own independent research career in October 2022. Bo's work will focus on searching for new materials hosting topological phonons and their potential applications in information technologies. Good luck!

  • Alya Bin Thabet Alqaydi successfully defends her MPhil thesis. The work looks at graph neural networks to predict material properties, demonstrating performances surpassing the current state-of-the-art. Alya will continue her research towards a PhD with the group.

2021

  • Bartomeu wins the 2021 James Clerk Maxwell Medal and Prize, presented by the Institute of Physics for exceptional contributions to the development of computational techniques that bring temperature to modern electronic structure methods, and their application to topological materials, photovoltaics, superconductors and planetary physics. The Medal was first presented in 1962, and a full list of awardees can be found here.

  • Bo Peng wins the 2022 Cavendish Prize in Computational Physics, presented annually to recognise outstanding work by a PhD student in the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge. Bo has received the prize for his work on Topological phonons in oxide perovskites controlled by light. Read more about this here.

  • Gunnar Lange wins the second prize for Best Talk at the Cavendish Graduate Student Conference, which displays frontier research conducted by current students at the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge. The talk presented Gunnar's work on Topology of Acoustic Phonons in 2D Materials.

  • Bartomeu receives a Future Leaders Fellowship from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The award of £1.5 million will support our research on the development of novel quantum materials for next-generation green technologies over the next four years. You can read more about this here.

  • Xejay Ng successfully defends his MPhil thesis. The work looks at point defects in lead halide perovskites, explaining how they impact the optoelectronic properties of the hosts.

2020

  • Our paper Speed of sound from fundamental physical constants published in Science Advances is selected as one of the 2020 Physics World Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year. The citation states that the breakthrough is presented for calculations showing that the upper limit on the speed of sound in solids and liquids depends on just two dimensionless quantities – the fine structure constant and the proton-to-electron mass ratio.

  • Pascal Salzbrenner successfully defends his MPhil thesis. The work looks at temperature-induced topological phase transitions in HgTe-CdTe quantum wells, explaining the microscopic mechanisms behind them. Pascal will continue his research pursuing a PhD at the Materials Department in Cambridge with Prof. Chris Pickard. Good luck!

  • Bo Peng wins the Best Poster prize at the Computational School on Electronic Excitations in Novel Materials Using the Yambo Code held at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. The winning poster was entitled Sub-picosecond photo-induced phase transition in 2D MoTe2, and the prize consisted of a diploma and a copy of the Fetter and Walecka book on Quantum Theory of Many-Particle Systems.

  • The Monserrat Group moves to the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy of the University of Cambridge. Bartomeu becomes the Gianna Angelopoulos Lecturer in Computational Materials Science.

2019

  • Kemal Atalar and Siyu Chen successfully defend their MPhil theses. Kem's thesis discusses the superconducting properties of incommensurate crystals, which he finds are dominated by electron-phason coupling. He will continue his research at Imperial College London where he will pursue a PhD. Siyu's thesis discusses stanene as a 2-dimensional topological insulator, discovering that its topological properties are robust all the way to room temperature. He will continue his work in the group to pursue a PhD.

2018