SCI Members' Lunch - Diamonds: More Than Just a Girl's Best Friend

Synopsis

The allure of the diamond is unchanged over the ages. From ancient times diamond has been cherished as a sign of wealth and status. In this talk the historical importance of this material will be discussed as well as new and future high-tech applications. How can we make diamond? Can we tell the difference between natural and lab-grown diamond? What can we use it for? The journey of diamond from gemstone to quantum computer is an intriguing one, encompassing murder, wealth, dead pets and a little bit of chemistry...

Following the success of the Retired Members' Lunch in the last two years this event has been made available to all SCI members and guests.

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CPD Info

SCI Members attending this meeting are able to claim CPD points.

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Guest Speaker

Dr Katherine Holt, Lecturer Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics, UCL

Katherine read chemistry at the University of Oxford. It was during her fourth year at Oxford that she gained her first experience of a real research project. Surface scientist John Foord's research on thin diamond films created by chemical vapour deposition caught her imagination. Having created highly conductive bornon-doped diamond electrodes, she went on to complete a PhD with Foord, researching the electrochemical properties and potential applications of the electrodes. After her PhD, Katherine joined Allen Bard's research group at the University of Texas, where she stayed for two years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. After her time in Bard's group she was awarded a two-year Centenary Ramsay Fellowship and returned to the UK. She was offered laboratory space at University College London (UCL). In 2006 she was awarded a five-year Advanced Research Fellowship from the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council); a lecturership in physical chemistry at UCL followed a year later.

Holt now pursues several major avenues of research. She investigates respiratory chain function in mitochondria; collaborates with inorganic chemist Graeme Hogarth to determine the electrochemical properties of hydrogenase biomimetics; and explores the redox properties of undoped diamond nanoparticles with Caruana. She still collaborates with Foord, using diamond-based electrodes to detect the metabolic products of living cells.