Research paper in top 100

Physicist Professor Manus Hayne has been congratulated for his "extraordinary achievement" after his research paper was ranked in the top 100 most highly read articles in Nature Scientific Reports. His paper 'Photoelectrolysis Using Type-II Semiconductor Heterojunctions' was selected as one of the top 100 read physics papers for the journal in 2017. The Chief Editor Dr Richard White and Executive Editor Dr Suzanne Farley said: "Scientific Reports published more than 3000 physics papers in 2017, and so a position in the top 100 most highly read articles is an extraordinary achievement - your science is of real value to the research community." Professor Hayne's research looked at developing methods of creating renewable fuel from water using quantum technology. Renewable hydrogen can already be produced by photoelectrolysis where solar power is used to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. But, despite significant research effort over the past four decades, fundamental problems remain before this can be adopted commercially due to inefficiency and lack of cost-effectiveness. Professor Hayne said: "For research to progress, innovation in both materials development and device design is clearly needed." The Lancaster study, which formed part of the PhD research of Dr Sam Harrison, provides the basis for further experimental work into the solar production of hydrogen as a renewable fuel. It demonstrates that the novel use of nanostructures could increase the maximum photovoltage generated in a photoelectrochemical cell, increasing the productivity of splitting water molecules.