Aysha Riaz is a final year PhD student in the Department of Chemistry at University College London. She works in the group of Prof Anna Regoutz, investigating sol-gel derived transparent conducting oxide (TCO) thin films. She uses AFM to study the surface morphology and film uniformity to link changes in solution chemistry with film properties to optimise film deposition. Additionally, obtaining information on film roughness helps to understand resulting electrical properties.
Aysha often uses AFM in combination with other surface-sensitive techniques such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to correlate structure, chemistry, electronic structure and material properties more broadly. She has also collected AFM images on many other samples as part of collaborative projects from 2D materials to dinosaur fossils, enjoying the versatility and beautiful images the technique delivers.
Aysha Riaz
Recent AFM-related papers:
Biography: In 2021 Aysha completed her MChem at University of Southampton before moving the same year to University College London to start her PhD in Chemistry under the supervision of Prof Anna Regoutz. She worked on metal oxide thin films predominantly but had the opportunity to collaborate on a variety of other projects, including a placement at the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics in Berlin, Germany and an internship with the RSC. She has now moved to the University of Oxford alongside her supervisor to work as a research assistant whilst completing her thesis.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aysha-riaz-57644621a/
Webpage: https://a-x-s.org/group/
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