Tom Fenech, a second year PhD student with the Nanophysics and Soft Matter group, University of Bristol has been awarded a commendation and prize for his poster at the recent Institute of Physics (IOP) Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (CMMP 11) conference.

CMMP 11 is the annual meeting of the IOP's Condensed Matter Division. It is a large, national meeting that attracts hundreds of delegates from across the UK. This year it was held at the grounds of the Lancashire County Cricket Club, at Old Trafford in Manchester.

Tom presented his poster entitled Forces Between Nanoparticles in a Nematic Host. Colloidal dispersions in nematic liquid crystals lend themselves to a variety of potential optical and electronic applications, such as high precision displays and self-assembled structures for light manipulation. Tom's poster outlined a method for calculating the forces between such gold nanorods embedded in a liquid crystal matrix. Tom Fenech is supervised by Dr Simon Hanna and Professor Robert Richardson, in the Nanophysics and Soft Matter research group.