Meet Research Associate and Support Officer, Dr Matthew Barr.
Matthew is a research associate and support officer in the Centre for Organic Electronics (COE), which comprises one half of the Materials Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF).
He completed his PhD candidacy at the University of Newcastle, for which he received the Royal Society’s Jak Kelly Prize for Excellence in Postgraduate Physics.
His PhD thesis, entitled “Imaging with Atoms: Aspect of Scanning Helium Microscopy” was on the design and development of a new type of microscope utilising neutral helium atoms as the probe particle. Indeed, the helium microscopy team’s work on in this field was showcased in London at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition in 2019.
In addition to the work on neutral helium microscopy, Matthew has been involved extensively in the field of organic electronics – primarily, solar cells printed from electrically conductive plastics. Along with fundamental research on these exciting new materials (using synchrotron techniques such as x-ray microscopy and x-ray spectroscopy) he is also involved in the major upscaling of this technology. He played a major role in all of the large installations of printed solar in Australia, such as the recent solar arbour installation in Lane Cove, Sydney.