Sam Stranks
00:00:00
I wouldn't say as, you know, 15 or something. I would say, yes. What I'm doing now is what I think I would do. The entrepreneurial stuff again really only came during my period at MIT.
I think I saw myself as an academic, and I think traditionally this sort of bridge between academia and industry or even spin outs was frowned upon. It's sort of not something that's natural. I think MIT is a very good exception.
I think Cambridge is a very good exception where it's very much that it is.
There are many academics who are very successful at doing it, but by and large, the academic world and the physics world, it's uncommon to have a startup or entrepreneurial activity. So I never thought to myself I would be an entrepreneur until I started learning about the entrepreneurial world and realizing I enjoyed it.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:00:46
Welcome to people doing physics, the podcast that explores the personal side of physics of the Cavendish laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
Jacob Butler
00:00:54
Hello, I'm Jacob Butler from the outreach office.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:00:56
And I'm Vanessa Bismuth, the Cavendish communications manager.
Jacob Butler
00:01:04
Today we're joined by Professor Sam Stranks, professor of optoelectronics at Royal Society University, research fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and a Cavendish joint member here at the Cavendish Laboratory.
Growing up in Australia, Sam graduated from the University of Adelaide with a BA in german and applied mathematics, alongside a B Sc in physics and physical chemistry, completing a PhD at Oxford University.
His research focuses on developing novel materials for low cost electronics applications such as solar cells and leds, and he is co founder of Swift Solar, a company taking this technology to market by developing lightweight perovskite solar panels.
If working in business and academia wasn't enough, Sam teaches at the university, setting up several new PhD programs, and is one of the co founders of Sustain Ed, a national charity developing content for primary schools looking at climate change solutions.
In this episode, we'll talk about his multidisciplinary route through science, how he manages to keep a foot in both research and industry, and just how many times he came close to dropping physics entirely. Stay with us. So first of all, welcome, Sam, thanks for joining us.
Sam Stranks
00:02:13
Thanks for having me on.
Jacob Butler
00:02:14
It's quite alright. And as always let's start at the beginning, so when did you first start getting interested in science and scientific thinking?
Sam Stranks
00:02:20
Yeah, so I think I look back at, even in primary school, I think I was quite interested in how the world works and I think particularly learning about the mechanics of things.
And I think sort of intuitively I had to lean towards physics, even at that point, even though I hadn't started any physics, it wasn't until high school where I really started picking up physics and maths and seeing how they interconnect and seeing that we can explain a lot about the world through physics.
Jacob Butler
00:02:46
And you mentioned in our earlier chat that your grandfather was a scientist as well. Was this something that sort of helped spark your interest?
Sam Stranks
00:02:51
Yeah, absolutely. So my grandfather, Don Stranks, he was a chemist, a professor in chemistry, actually.
He was in the UK for a few years and then he was in Melbourne in Australia, and then he was vice chancellor of Adelaide University. Unfortunately, he passed away when I was only two, so I never, never met him. But his science certainly has inspired me.
In fact, he worked in somewhat similar area, actually, particularly looking at electron transfer chemistry. So, actually, I cited him in my PhD thesis, which I was very excited about.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:03:20
You want to talk to us about your teachers as well? We understand that your teachers made a great impression on you.
Sam Stranks
00:03:27
Yeah, I think so. Particularly in high school. I think I had two very good physics teacher high school teachers who were really inspiring.
They were very rigorous, somewhat strict, but. But certainly rigorous.
And really, I think, instilled the, you know, the excitement physics can bring and particularly how, again, how it can explain the world and particularly also how it connects with maths as well, which is something I'm also quite passionate about. I like that connection.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:03:54
So is that how you made that choice to go to university, because you studied German in university as well as science? So do you want to talk to us about your choices there?
Sam Stranks
00:04:06
Yeah. So I think the way to describe is I did quite a broad undergraduate degree. I'm quite interested in several things.
First and foremost, it was the sciences, physics, chemistry and maths, that I really enjoyed at school, that I wanted to keep carrying on. But I also enjoyed travel a lot.
And actually, after I finished high school, traveled to Europe and I enjoyed being in Germany, so I decided I wanted to learn German. I actually have a grandmother who's German as well, who's austrian. Sorry.
And I wanted to be able to speak German with her, so that inspired me to do that. I really quite like that.
At least the undergraduate degree I did in Adelaide, in Australia, did allow me to do these two very disparate and separate degrees concurrently. A bachelor of science and a bachelor of arts.
But I found that really useful for having a broad understanding of how things work and even the language side of things.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:05:01
So in the natural sciences side of things, did you pick up physics quite early on or did you explore different disciplines?
Sam Stranks
00:05:12
Yeah, well, I started my first year doing physics, maths, chemistry, because I like that from school. I actually, I had a plan to actually do medicine from there and I started picking up biology.
In fact, I did biology my first year as well, which is a new world to me, but I quite enjoyed it and then had a track towards doing medicine. I started, in fact, I dropped physics and maths entirely just to be able to fit in the track towards a more medical science based degree.
And actually was two weeks into that, in my second year, and realized that I missed physics and wanted to go back to it. So I flipped back, ended up carrying on in a bachelor of science with physics as one of the majors.
And actually at a second point, after finishing undergraduate, I had a place in medical school, graduate medical school in Australia, that my path was going to be medicine. My parents and family are all mostly in the medical area, so I saw that as a somewhat natural path, but again, couldn't shake that.
I really liked the physics and I didn't want to give that up. And at the same time also got the Rhodes scholarship to go to Oxford, which then enabled me to go and do a PhD in physics.
And that's a bit of a sliding doors, a very big sliding doors moment for me, which I look back on, but certainly have no regrets.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:06:32
We'll go back to that later on in the conversation. But I think you managed to find ways to bring medical field into your, into your own work.
Jacob Butler
00:06:46
So what was it that you looked at during your PhD in Oxford?
Sam Stranks
00:06:48
Yeah, so I generally was working on emerging semiconductors for solar photovoltaics, and it was in fact my first step into the world of materials for solar, solar cells. I was specifically working on organic materials. So actually carbon nanotubes and wrapping carbon nanotubes in, in polymers.
The polymers absorb light really well, and the idea is that that polymer absorbs the sunlight and energizes electrons, and those electrons inject into the carbon nanotube, which then zooms to an electrode and could be collected.
So quite an interesting mix of chemistry, some wet chemistry and processing these materials, but also in the physics of understanding that electron transfer and those energized electrons.
So it was quite, again, quite a nice mix, and I think it's been quite a theme for my career since those materials, of course, were relatively early stage. And I think we certainly found some good science. I think from a practical aspect, they're still quite hard to make efficient.
These carbon nanotubes are particularly hard to synthesize in a very pure way. So I think there's some fundamental limitations that might stop them from becoming a really mainstream solar material.
But I certainly learned a lot and really springboarded me to the next point in my career.
Jacob Butler
00:07:59
Oh, yeah, it sounds like it sort of crossed over into renewables a bit then. Was this a sort of conscious choice that you made, or is this just something you found yourself sliding into?
Sam Stranks
00:08:06
Yeah, no, it's a conscious choice.
It's something I've certainly seen even from through high school, seeing climate change as one of the biggest challenges we face, society faces and continues to be.
So I was very inspired to use the science and the physics and chemistry that I've been learning to be able to apply it to an area that I'm passionate about. So when I was looking, I had the scholarship to go to Oxford and I was looking at potential PhD projects.
I really was particularly looking in renewable areas that attracted me, and that happened to do so. And I worked with Professor Robert Nicholas and Michael Johnston in the Clarendon in Oxford.
Jacob Butler
00:08:45
A lot of the kids we get in seem to like physics, but struggle to see how it applies to things and how this sort of very fundamental sounding research can tie into actual technologies and things like that. But you then went on to a postdoc in which you first used perovskites.
Now, are these something you're still looking at, or is it sort of historic technology?
Sam Stranks
00:09:01
Yeah. So still, a core part of the group was looking at these halide perovskite materials.
In 2012, when I finished my PhD, my wife and I wanted to stay in Oxford for a bit longer. She was finishing her PhD and doing a postdoc. So I joined Henry Snaith's group in Oxford in 2012.
And actually that fortuitously was the time when the first perovskite solar cells were coming along in that group. So it was a very exciting time to join. I actually joined to study disensidized solar cells and very quickly started on these new materials.
And that was an extremely exciting time. It was every day, every week, a new discovery around this material, because it just hadn't really been studied before.
A material, that emerging semiconductor, they're essentially an ionic material that's essentially a human made mineral that we can solution process in the lab very inexpensively, but they perform really well.
And actually, that was the really surprising thing, that from that early stage, they were already performing very well as a semiconductor, and bringing surprises in terms of the photophysics that we were understanding. And that meant it was a very exciting post op period, two years there, and that again, springboard me to. To the next stage of my career as well.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:10:15
So, yeah, talking about your next stage, where was your next stage? You went on to the US.
Sam Stranks
00:10:20
Yeah. So, yeah, I went to MIT. Then I was fortunate enough to get a Murray Curie Fellowship, which took me out from the UK to the US for two years.
I worked in, actually, an electrical engineering department there with Vladimir Bulovich, and continued working on perovskite solar cells and developing the materials themselves. Some of the things I started picking up there was around trying to understand the nanoscale and the micro scale properties of these materials.
So really zooming in with microscopes to understand the photophysics on very small length scales, it actually turns out that those length scales really matter for these solar cells. Even though we think about a big module that's meters squared, actually, it's really. The nanoscaler really matters a lot. We're seeing a lot.
A lot of the performance losses and the instabilities in the material actually start arising from that very small length scales.
And so that during that period, that postdoc period, that's when I started understanding that and developing these ideas around these small length scales. The other thing that was really exciting about MIT was the entrepreneurial vibe. It's a really exciting place for that.
And, in fact, that was really where the first conversation started that led to Swift solar, the founding of Swift Solar, with a colleague there, who's now the CEO, Joel Jean, working together with him closely in the lab. He was a PhD student at the time. We had some really exciting ideas together with our colleagues at Stanford as well, who were also co founders.
And also some of us, in fact, bridge back and date back to our Oxford days together. Several of us moved across the US to work there.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:11:52
What was so particular at MIT that you found so inspiring in terms of entrepreneurship? What was it about that made you...
Sam Stranks
00:12:02
I think, yeah, it's hard to put a finger on. It's part of the fabric of the institute.
I think almost all students, each student who comes into the lab, whether they're an undergraduate student or a graduate PhD student or a postdoc, there's sort of some excitement about how that technology could be used or commercialized or licensed out. And, in fact, there's almost a. Many of the students I interact with, there is a sort of a mindset that that's a pathway they want to follow.
They want to take, you know, have an idea in the lab that they can then take and spin out. And I think there's. MIT facilitates that really well, there's a very good system in place there.
I actually think Cambridge does a very good job of that, too.
But MIT, I think, is very much the model for how one can take, you know, really quite fundamental lab based research and spin it out and be very successful at doing that.
Jacob Butler
00:12:50
So you mentioned Swift solar. Do you want to tell us a bit more about what this company does?
Sam Stranks
00:12:54
Yeah. So Swift Solar is a us based company based in California.
The aim is to produce very high efficiency solar modules using these halo perovskite materials. So it's something where we can layer two perovskites together, or layer perovskite and silicon together.
So silicon is the current mainstream technology for photovoltaics.
We can add a perovskite layer on top and actually, which is a tandem technology and move well beyond the efficiency of silicon and in the longer term, doing that with replacing silicon and doing that with two perovskite layers. So these two layers absorb slightly different regions of the solar spectrum, slightly different colors.
So working together, they can get around the traditional efficiency limits that one layer alone would have.
We're commercializing this, this technology, particularly towards the high efficiency solar, and particularly thinking about how scalable ways to manufacture these materials and how to make them extremely stable for decades.
Jacob Butler
00:13:56
So I imagine that's quite a different sort of mindset than one you'd have in the lab when you're working in those nanoscales and very sort of fundamental technologies. Is that something you actively sought out?
Sam Stranks
00:14:05
Yes, it is, and I think it's something I really like having that connection with the big picture and the scale up and those very different scientific and engineering questions.
And we may be focusing on the lab, but they actually do connect quite strongly, because I mentioned before about how the nanoscale and the micro scale really do matter.
We're seeing these heterogeneities on small length scales that might not seem significant, but actually do end up mattering for the large scale modules.
So, for example, we see very small phases that can appear in the manufacturing process that end up being sites that degrade the cell and start degrading the performance.
So we need to understand them, and that's really what we're doing in the lab, understanding why they're there, how they're there, and then thinking about solutions to remove those unwanted phase impurities. And that ultimately will help the long term scale up and also the performance.
Jacob Butler
00:14:57
Yeah. And you talked about them sort of degrading over time and things like that.
I mean, obviously, this is technology that can be sat in the field for years, if not decades. I mean, you talked about simulating where in our previous conversation is that sort of, can you explain a bit about that and why that's useful for them?
Sam Stranks
00:15:11
Yeah. Yeah. So a big challenge is. So currently, if you buy a silicon module, it will last for 25 years. It'll be guaranteed for 25 years.
It'll probably last for 40 years. Some of the best panels. So there's a bar that's set very high for a new technology that needs to come through one of the big challenges.
Well, there's two challenges with that for the Perovskites. One is a new technology.
So to be able to validate it to last for decades, you need to think about ways to test it in an accelerated fashion that we can get feedback much, much faster than decades. Even over even months of testing, we can understand what that would be equivalent to in terms of years in the field.
So we and others in the field are coming up with methods for testing cells at elevated temperature, for example, with continuous operation, with different bias conditions, to really try and mimic the field operation conditions, particularly to get feedback on, again, some of these impurities, these performance losses, and how that could feed back to the manufacturing process. And the second is that it's an emerging material. It's not yet stable enough to say it would last.
That we can say with confidence that it will last for 25 to 40 years. That's a materials challenge that still needs to be solved.
There's been very good progress in the last few years to make the material a lot more stable. The first configurations, even that we were working with in 2012 type region, they were quite unstable.
But over the decade, effectively, since there's been a lot of work on the compositions, a lot of work on the deposition process to make them a lot more stable. And now, even over the last year, some of the results that are coming out, both from academia but also from industry, are looking extremely exciting.
And I think I would put probably now it's been validated at least at five years, and it's mainly a function of it hasn't been tested for long enough to guarantee longer than that. So there's still some way to go to get to the 25 years, but there's a very exciting trajectory.
Jacob Butler
00:17:05
So it's at least five years for now.
Sam Stranks
00:17:07
At least validated for five years. I would say it will last for longer, but we're not yet able to guarantee 25 years.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:17:15
So how is it back and forth between your work in the lab at like, research, fundamental level, and in your company and between the lab and the industry, how does that work? So one feeds the other, but does the other feed back?
Sam Stranks
00:17:34
Yeah, very good question. I think the role is quite separate. There is, you know, we're focusing on the fundamental work in the lab, in the company.
I'm a co founder and early on was obviously very heavily involved. I'm now a scientific advisor in the company.
And really more giving the academic perspective on what we and others in the academic world are learning and how that can feed to the industry we do.
Actually, it is both ways, because I think particularly what's important is understanding from industry what the questions are we need to tackle, because I think we as academics are sometimes at fault of projecting what we think is the problem onto industry. But actually when you speak to them, they have a very specific set of questions they want answered.
And that's where there's very fruitful collaboration as well.
And that's not just this example that applies in many other areas of industry, academia, interaction, where that is fruitful, where we can really understand the questions and then tailor some of the academic approaches and questions towards those problems.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:18:33
Does it help focuses your research? Because it's almost like looking for a needle in a haystack sometimes.
Sam Stranks
00:18:41
Yeah, it is. I think it does focus in that sense, but I think it's important also, that's not the only work we work on.
It's the real value of academia is that we have freedom and new ideas that can be disruptive, that come along that we haven't thought of before, others haven't thought of before.
Important to have the mechanisms there such that a lab can produce these new things that could eventually feed onto existing or new industry, including through new startups. So I think that's, again, also why I find my academic role really exciting, is that there is those new elements.
It's not just solving some of the problems that industry want, but also thinking about how we can generate the new technology that could surpass what is currently out there.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:19:26
Actually, do you want to tell us a little bit about the other big questions that you're trying to answer in your lab, in your research work?
Sam Stranks
00:19:34
Yeah, so we have a big stream is on photovoltaic research, but we're also looking at lighting technologies as well.
So we're looking at, in fact, if you run a solar cell in reverse, so solar cell is harvesting sunlight and generating electricity, if you run it the other way around where you inject electricity and you get light out. So that's an LED. So effectively, the same materials that we've been using for solar cells are actually very good led materials as well.
And so one of the big strand of our lab is thinking about how to produce efficient blue, red and green emitters, for example, that could be used for displays or for white panel lighting as well, to make more efficient and better color quality white lighting.
And then another area that we're working on actually is in actual medical imaging and applying some of these semiconductors, where, again, we're developing for pv, but for x ray detection.
So here for x ray detection in medical images, for example, what we need is, in a solar cell, we only need 500 material to absorb those optical invisible photons. For an x ray, we need millimeters of material.
So essentially, we're moving towards very thick solar cells that harvest the x rays and then generate electrons and holes that we can collect. So it operates like a solar cell, but for a very different application.
And so we're developing these halide perovskite materials towards x ray detector applications. And really, the application is moving towards very, very sensitive x ray detection.
So if you have a patient, for example, having a CT scan, the x ray passes through the patient. That detector on the other end, we can make extremely sensitive.
And so that means that the dose of that x ray that has to pass through the patient can come down significantly. And one of the limitations at the moment of x ray scanning, or CT scanning, for example, is dose.
So that radiologists would need to consider, and the patient would need to consider if it's the right thing to have a scan or nothing.
We want to flip that around and have it so that it's so low dose that you can even use it for screening, so you can have think about very early stage disease detection, for cancer, for heart disease, and monitoring over time. And that's something very exciting. We know to radiologists as well, how they could, for example, see the change in something over time.
If there's a small tumour, very early stage of that, they could see how that's evolving over time, and then they can make decisions on. On how to treat that in a much more guided fashion. So we're very excited about this.
We actually have a very recent startup spinning up from the lab here in Cambridge, clarity sensors, to commercialize this technology. It's very early stage, but we have a very exciting trajectory here, leveraging these very efficient halide perovskite materials towards medical.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:22:22
Imaging detectors, and a very subtle way of bringing back the medical into your work and to please your family as well. I work in medical sciences as well. Well done.
Sam Stranks
00:22:36
Yes, something very exciting to me. I think it's another... Healthcare is another very big problem, and if we can use again the physics and the semiconductors we can produce to make an impact there, it's a fantastic opportunity.
Jacob Butler
00:22:48
I do think it's great about physics that you find this technology and it's useful for generating electricity, generating light, and also slightly different format. You can use it in a very different sort of environment for doing very different sort of things.
So from the outside sort of industry and academia look very different, but you're someone who crosses both those boundaries. Do you find it sort of a difficult process moving from one to the other, or.
Sam Stranks
00:23:09
I think certainly early on it was a very steep learning curve, learning the business world and particularly, you know, being involved a very early stage in a startup, you learn a lot of things very quickly, and others have, who've done setups, I'm sure will have the exact same experience that they've had to be doing all these multiple tasks at once while learning how to do these multiple tasks. So there's a challenge in that, but that has been very rewarding.
I've certainly learned a lot about the business world and how these technologies could fit into that, how the things we do in the lab could end up making an impact in terms of interacting between the two.
I think it's also certainly helped with interactions with other industry partners and how we work with them to understand the working mechanisms of a business, of technology business and how that moves along. And that's certainly enriched my career a lot.
I really like that bridge between the fundamental work we do in the lab, the teaching that we do, but then how that could then be applied to the industry world.
Jacob Butler
00:24:13
So you talked about sort of needing that change of perspective at times in our earlier chat. I mean, how do you view the different perspectives of business and sort of research?
Sam Stranks
00:24:21
Yeah, I think, well, I mean, both extremely important and I think, you know, it's working out where, you know, even me as an individual, where I can sort of get the most, you know, add the most value as someone who can work as an academic but also have a hat on as, you know, as someone in industry, what works with industry or an industry. And I think that's making sure finding that balance is tricky.
And I think it comes back to the fact really the academic world can produce the new ideas and the new innovative things that industry just don't have the bandwidth for, or just don't have the resource for that industry could then adopt. I think that's, again something I find very exciting.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:25:05
So looking back at a younger version of you, did you ever think that you would like, did you have a clear picture of what your career would look like? Did you picture you as an entrepreneur or an academic or at this hybrid model?
Sam Stranks
00:25:24
It's a very good question. Well, I think when I look back long enough ago, I saw myself as an australian footballer. So a very different world. Yes.
And actually I played a lot of australian football to sort of semi pro level in Australia.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:25:39
But which one is the australian football? Is that soccer or is it.
Sam Stranks
00:25:43
No, it's completely different game. It's a mix between rugby and soccer. It probably is the best way to do that one. Somewhat similar to gaelic football, if you know the Irish game.
Anyway, that was a very different path than when I was. If you asked my probably twelve year old self that would have been my answer. But I think I. Yeah, I think I did. I. When I was a, when I was at school and even an undergraduate, I didn't really know what an academic does and maybe that's something that's sort of a common theme. It's, you know, we. The way you interact with academics as an undergraduate is you see them as lecturer.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:26:20
Yeah.
Sam Stranks
00:26:20
But you don't actually know. Most of the time is actually spent. A lot of the time is spent on research and that's a whole different world.
You know, they're nothing resting over the. Taking a break over the summer. It is getting back to the other work and I think that's.
I always enjoyed, you know, the disciplines I studied and it was a natural path for me to then just keep going and, you know, towards an academic career.
I didn't know much about research either, even as an undergraduate, until, you know, doing a final year honours master's project where you really get to dive into research. So that was something, an uncertainty of, if I want to be an academic, research has to obviously be something I like doing. And it happened to be.
I really liked it, in fact liked it even more than the theory and the coursework I was doing. So. Yeah, but I think I wouldn't say as, you know, 15 or something, I would say, yes, what I'm doing now is what I think I would do.
The entrepreneurial stuff again, really only came during my period at MIT. I think I saw myself as an academic and.
And I think traditionally this sort of bridge between academia and industry or even spin outs was frowned upon. It's sort of not something that's natural. I think MIT is a very good exception.
I think Cambridge is a very good exception where it's very much that it is.
There are many academics who are very successful at doing it, but by and large the academic world and the physics world, it's uncommon to have a startup or entrepreneurial of activity. So I never thought of myself I would be an entrepreneur until I started learning about the entrepreneurial world and realizing I enjoyed it.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:27:54
It really is a matter of grasping the opportunities when they come.
Sam Stranks
00:27:57
Yeah, exactly.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:27:59
So you talked about teaching already quite a lot, but let's go back to it because it's an important part of your activities as well. And you setting up PhD programs and you funded this charity with your colleagues. Do you want to talk to us about sustain aid first?
Sam Stranks
00:28:17
Yeah, sure. Yeah. So sustain education. So it's a charity that we founded.
So me together with two of my former postdoc and a former PhD students, Stuart McPherson and Beth Tennyson, who are both here in the Cavendish and I suppose the challenge we want to solve is that at the moment climate and the fact there is an impending climate crisis, primary school kids know that this is a problem. They're taught that there is a growing problem, but they're not taught that there are solutions.
So actually there's a growing issue that many 1011 year olds are getting this climate anxiety that's coming in because they know there's a big problem and it's probably them who will be facing that problem because unfortunately they'll be the ones, the peak of their career when 2050 comes.
So what we wanted to do, the aim of sustain it, is to develop teaching materials that teach not just the problem but also that there are solutions and technical solutions coming along that can feed into this.
There are renewable energy technologies coming along teaching them about what they are and what the future of those look like and how they play a role in decarbonising, decarbonising society. And so we've developed a whole lot of teaching modules with packages that we have open source and make available to teachers.
We piloted it in a few schools across Cambridge here over the last four years and now we're in 40 schools across the country and in fact around 1200 teachers who've downloaded the materials now from our website and teachers are then free to adapt them how they like to fit their own curricula. And so this has been really exciting. It's something again, slightly different world again with education at a much earlier level.
We of course had lots of good input from teachers along the way to develop those materials and it's something we want to scale further as well because it's something we see, it could be in every school across the country, or even even broader than that, because they are materials that can be sent out remotely and teachers can then pick up and adapt up them as they like and fit into the year five and year six curricula.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:30:26
And beyond reassuring those youngsters that solutions are possible and there is a way to try and fix or solve the issues. Are you also hoping to inspire future physicists, scientists?
Sam Stranks
00:30:46
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's another.
I mean, we sort of embedded within the curriculum is generating the excitement about the physics that underpins a lot of these technology innovations. And so we do, for example, as part of the module we have, we supply for the teachers.
They have a little device that can measure the wind, the students can measure the wind, and they can also measure the solar intensity.
So every day in the schoolyard, they would go out and take a reading of the wind and the solar, the sunlight, and then they'll log it in their logbook and actually it goes on the website. And so those students get opportunity to work with numbers and how to convert numbers.
They, in fact, do some calculations of how much energy that would be in total across the course of a week or across the course of the year. So they get to know some of the maths that is needed.
But, yeah, but really there is a good opportunity to inspire what will be the next class of physicists and scientists and engineers who'll be the ones really tackling these problems towards 2050.
Jacob Butler
00:31:48
I think it's great to show these kids that there's lots of ways they can help as well, because the kids we get through for the outreach things, quite often the ones that want to help see medicine is the only way they can do that. Whereas actually, in the real world, there's huge numbers of careers with huge numbers and things. Great to show these things at an early age.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:32:04
On a side note, I just remembered, I think we interviewed Stuart Macpherson, who is the one of your founders. We'll put the link in the show notes as well for anyone who wants to listen back.
And in terms of the PhD programs here at Cambridge, do you want to tell us about the new one you're setting up?
Sam Stranks
00:32:26
Yeah, exactly. So we've just set up a new PhD program. It's just been approved actually a few weeks ago. So it's a PhD in sustainable energy materials innovation.
It's going to be a PhD program that is, it's in fact based here in the Cavendish, but it spans across five different departments across the university. And the aim there is for students to come in to do research on new energy materials technologies towards the net zero industry.
And I think one of the really unique parts about the course is that students will be in a cohort where they're together with colleagues who are all working on different energy technologies.
So I have fellow students, there might be one focusing on battery technologies, another focusing on solar technologies, another perhaps on low energy computing technologies.
And they'll be able to interact and use expertise across those different fields and interconnect those expertise, which is something we've found really good spot examples of that already happening across West Cambridge. We want to formalize that in a course where students can really benefit from that.
And so the students coming out will have not just their own research in their particular area, but broad awareness across the energy technology landscape, where their own energy technology fits into the wider energy landscape and how it fits in, for example, how policy plays a role in that, how finances play roles, how behavioral change plays a role in that. So it's something we see is very exciting. So this is together with Sian Dutton, and we're kind directors of the course.
We'll be taking our first PhD students in the 2025 intake, October 2025. So we'll be in the next few months advertising out for admissions for the course.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:34:04
Excellent. We'll put also the links in the show notes.
Jacob Butler
00:34:07
Yeah, sounds excellent course. And from a lot of our sort of interviewees, we've heard about the important, exciting things happen at those fuzzy edges between disciplines.
And it sounds like a course really built around encouraging that sort of cross pollination and wider understanding, at least what the context in which you're working.
Sam Stranks
00:34:23
Exactly. Yeah.
So that's, I think, you know, even for my own career and I know many other colleagues are the same, we find, you know, that the interactions with the other disciplines is where some really good innovation happens.
And, in fact, in many ways, it's, you know, I, I'm in, you know, chemical engineering biotechnology department is my core appointment, but I'm a physicist, and we have many examples of that across Cambridge. But as a academics working in many different fields and departments.
And I think that's really adds to the richness of this place that we have people who work at the disciplined edges and interact really well.
And that's, I think, something that we, you know, it's exciting for our own research, but also for the students and the postdoc and the staff who come along and interact with us and the programs.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:35:04
That's also the principle of the natural science tripos, like for undergraduate students. Right. To have that overview of all the disciplines.
Sam Stranks
00:35:13
Exactly, yeah. It's core to Cambridge and I think it's really important we do that.
You know, students can come in and have a broad, it's a bit ticky their first years in natural sciences because many students like myself, you know, may do subjects that we had never done at school, never knew existed and end up, you know, being a big part of what we actually end up doing in our careers. So it's. I think that's really important.
I think in many places in the UK people come in directly to, you know, to a physics degree, for example, but don't get that broad understanding. So I think we're quite fortunate here to have this system. I'm very happy.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:35:46
So it's only logical that it continues throughout the PhD program.
Jacob Butler
00:35:52
I think I'm going to bottle that answer for next time I help out the open days and I get the students asking me, why can't I just do physics?
Sam Stranks
00:35:58
Yeah. Yeah. And I think another.
I think again, something that excites me a lot is, is that physics does underpin a lot of these, you know, a lot of what we see in the world, a lot of technologies.
And that's, again, why I find as a physicist, I really like working in these areas that apply, that I can use the physics to apply them in these different areas.
Jacob Butler
00:36:18
Lovely. And any other plans for the future that you wanted to bring up that we've not gone through or anything else you wanted to add to finish us off?
Sam Stranks
00:36:25
No, I think that covers everything. I hope we can make meaningful impact on, on climate change and on these big global challenges.
And that's through both the technology but also through the students and postdocs and staff that we train through the system, that this collective effort will make the impact in the long term. And that's something that excites me a lot.
Jacob Butler
00:36:48
Thank you very much for talking to us today.
Sam Stranks
00:36:49
Thanks.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:36:50
Thank you very much, Sam. So thank you, Sam Stranks, for joining us today.
As always, if you'd like to learn more about what we've discussed in this episode and more generally about our work at the Cavendish lab, please have a look at the show notes or go to our website, www. Dot phy dot cam dot ac dot UK.
If you have any questions you would like to ask our physicists, head to social media and tag us with the hashtag hash peopledoingphysics. This episode was recorded and edited by Chris Brockley. Thank you for listening to people doing physics. We'll be back next month. Bye.
00:00:00
I wouldn't say as, you know, 15 or something. I would say, yes. What I'm doing now is what I think I would do. The entrepreneurial stuff again really only came during my period at MIT.
I think I saw myself as an academic, and I think traditionally this sort of bridge between academia and industry or even spin outs was frowned upon. It's sort of not something that's natural. I think MIT is a very good exception.
I think Cambridge is a very good exception where it's very much that it is.
There are many academics who are very successful at doing it, but by and large, the academic world and the physics world, it's uncommon to have a startup or entrepreneurial activity. So I never thought to myself I would be an entrepreneur until I started learning about the entrepreneurial world and realizing I enjoyed it.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:00:46
Welcome to people doing physics, the podcast that explores the personal side of physics of the Cavendish laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
Jacob Butler
00:00:54
Hello, I'm Jacob Butler from the outreach office.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:00:56
And I'm Vanessa Bismuth, the Cavendish communications manager.
Jacob Butler
00:01:04
Today we're joined by Professor Sam Stranks, professor of optoelectronics at Royal Society University, research fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and a Cavendish joint member here at the Cavendish Laboratory.
Growing up in Australia, Sam graduated from the University of Adelaide with a BA in german and applied mathematics, alongside a B Sc in physics and physical chemistry, completing a PhD at Oxford University.
His research focuses on developing novel materials for low cost electronics applications such as solar cells and leds, and he is co founder of Swift Solar, a company taking this technology to market by developing lightweight perovskite solar panels.
If working in business and academia wasn't enough, Sam teaches at the university, setting up several new PhD programs, and is one of the co founders of Sustain Ed, a national charity developing content for primary schools looking at climate change solutions.
In this episode, we'll talk about his multidisciplinary route through science, how he manages to keep a foot in both research and industry, and just how many times he came close to dropping physics entirely. Stay with us. So first of all, welcome, Sam, thanks for joining us.
Sam Stranks
00:02:13
Thanks for having me on.
Jacob Butler
00:02:14
It's quite alright. And as always let's start at the beginning, so when did you first start getting interested in science and scientific thinking?
Sam Stranks
00:02:20
Yeah, so I think I look back at, even in primary school, I think I was quite interested in how the world works and I think particularly learning about the mechanics of things.
And I think sort of intuitively I had to lean towards physics, even at that point, even though I hadn't started any physics, it wasn't until high school where I really started picking up physics and maths and seeing how they interconnect and seeing that we can explain a lot about the world through physics.
Jacob Butler
00:02:46
And you mentioned in our earlier chat that your grandfather was a scientist as well. Was this something that sort of helped spark your interest?
Sam Stranks
00:02:51
Yeah, absolutely. So my grandfather, Don Stranks, he was a chemist, a professor in chemistry, actually.
He was in the UK for a few years and then he was in Melbourne in Australia, and then he was vice chancellor of Adelaide University. Unfortunately, he passed away when I was only two, so I never, never met him. But his science certainly has inspired me.
In fact, he worked in somewhat similar area, actually, particularly looking at electron transfer chemistry. So, actually, I cited him in my PhD thesis, which I was very excited about.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:03:20
You want to talk to us about your teachers as well? We understand that your teachers made a great impression on you.
Sam Stranks
00:03:27
Yeah, I think so. Particularly in high school. I think I had two very good physics teacher high school teachers who were really inspiring.
They were very rigorous, somewhat strict, but. But certainly rigorous.
And really, I think, instilled the, you know, the excitement physics can bring and particularly how, again, how it can explain the world and particularly also how it connects with maths as well, which is something I'm also quite passionate about. I like that connection.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:03:54
So is that how you made that choice to go to university, because you studied German in university as well as science? So do you want to talk to us about your choices there?
Sam Stranks
00:04:06
Yeah. So I think the way to describe is I did quite a broad undergraduate degree. I'm quite interested in several things.
First and foremost, it was the sciences, physics, chemistry and maths, that I really enjoyed at school, that I wanted to keep carrying on. But I also enjoyed travel a lot.
And actually, after I finished high school, traveled to Europe and I enjoyed being in Germany, so I decided I wanted to learn German. I actually have a grandmother who's German as well, who's austrian. Sorry.
And I wanted to be able to speak German with her, so that inspired me to do that. I really quite like that.
At least the undergraduate degree I did in Adelaide, in Australia, did allow me to do these two very disparate and separate degrees concurrently. A bachelor of science and a bachelor of arts.
But I found that really useful for having a broad understanding of how things work and even the language side of things.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:05:01
So in the natural sciences side of things, did you pick up physics quite early on or did you explore different disciplines?
Sam Stranks
00:05:12
Yeah, well, I started my first year doing physics, maths, chemistry, because I like that from school. I actually, I had a plan to actually do medicine from there and I started picking up biology.
In fact, I did biology my first year as well, which is a new world to me, but I quite enjoyed it and then had a track towards doing medicine. I started, in fact, I dropped physics and maths entirely just to be able to fit in the track towards a more medical science based degree.
And actually was two weeks into that, in my second year, and realized that I missed physics and wanted to go back to it. So I flipped back, ended up carrying on in a bachelor of science with physics as one of the majors.
And actually at a second point, after finishing undergraduate, I had a place in medical school, graduate medical school in Australia, that my path was going to be medicine. My parents and family are all mostly in the medical area, so I saw that as a somewhat natural path, but again, couldn't shake that.
I really liked the physics and I didn't want to give that up. And at the same time also got the Rhodes scholarship to go to Oxford, which then enabled me to go and do a PhD in physics.
And that's a bit of a sliding doors, a very big sliding doors moment for me, which I look back on, but certainly have no regrets.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:06:32
We'll go back to that later on in the conversation. But I think you managed to find ways to bring medical field into your, into your own work.
Jacob Butler
00:06:46
So what was it that you looked at during your PhD in Oxford?
Sam Stranks
00:06:48
Yeah, so I generally was working on emerging semiconductors for solar photovoltaics, and it was in fact my first step into the world of materials for solar, solar cells. I was specifically working on organic materials. So actually carbon nanotubes and wrapping carbon nanotubes in, in polymers.
The polymers absorb light really well, and the idea is that that polymer absorbs the sunlight and energizes electrons, and those electrons inject into the carbon nanotube, which then zooms to an electrode and could be collected.
So quite an interesting mix of chemistry, some wet chemistry and processing these materials, but also in the physics of understanding that electron transfer and those energized electrons.
So it was quite, again, quite a nice mix, and I think it's been quite a theme for my career since those materials, of course, were relatively early stage. And I think we certainly found some good science. I think from a practical aspect, they're still quite hard to make efficient.
These carbon nanotubes are particularly hard to synthesize in a very pure way. So I think there's some fundamental limitations that might stop them from becoming a really mainstream solar material.
But I certainly learned a lot and really springboarded me to the next point in my career.
Jacob Butler
00:07:59
Oh, yeah, it sounds like it sort of crossed over into renewables a bit then. Was this a sort of conscious choice that you made, or is this just something you found yourself sliding into?
Sam Stranks
00:08:06
Yeah, no, it's a conscious choice.
It's something I've certainly seen even from through high school, seeing climate change as one of the biggest challenges we face, society faces and continues to be.
So I was very inspired to use the science and the physics and chemistry that I've been learning to be able to apply it to an area that I'm passionate about. So when I was looking, I had the scholarship to go to Oxford and I was looking at potential PhD projects.
I really was particularly looking in renewable areas that attracted me, and that happened to do so. And I worked with Professor Robert Nicholas and Michael Johnston in the Clarendon in Oxford.
Jacob Butler
00:08:45
A lot of the kids we get in seem to like physics, but struggle to see how it applies to things and how this sort of very fundamental sounding research can tie into actual technologies and things like that. But you then went on to a postdoc in which you first used perovskites.
Now, are these something you're still looking at, or is it sort of historic technology?
Sam Stranks
00:09:01
Yeah. So still, a core part of the group was looking at these halide perovskite materials.
In 2012, when I finished my PhD, my wife and I wanted to stay in Oxford for a bit longer. She was finishing her PhD and doing a postdoc. So I joined Henry Snaith's group in Oxford in 2012.
And actually that fortuitously was the time when the first perovskite solar cells were coming along in that group. So it was a very exciting time to join. I actually joined to study disensidized solar cells and very quickly started on these new materials.
And that was an extremely exciting time. It was every day, every week, a new discovery around this material, because it just hadn't really been studied before.
A material, that emerging semiconductor, they're essentially an ionic material that's essentially a human made mineral that we can solution process in the lab very inexpensively, but they perform really well.
And actually, that was the really surprising thing, that from that early stage, they were already performing very well as a semiconductor, and bringing surprises in terms of the photophysics that we were understanding. And that meant it was a very exciting post op period, two years there, and that again, springboard me to. To the next stage of my career as well.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:10:15
So, yeah, talking about your next stage, where was your next stage? You went on to the US.
Sam Stranks
00:10:20
Yeah. So, yeah, I went to MIT. Then I was fortunate enough to get a Murray Curie Fellowship, which took me out from the UK to the US for two years.
I worked in, actually, an electrical engineering department there with Vladimir Bulovich, and continued working on perovskite solar cells and developing the materials themselves. Some of the things I started picking up there was around trying to understand the nanoscale and the micro scale properties of these materials.
So really zooming in with microscopes to understand the photophysics on very small length scales, it actually turns out that those length scales really matter for these solar cells. Even though we think about a big module that's meters squared, actually, it's really. The nanoscaler really matters a lot. We're seeing a lot.
A lot of the performance losses and the instabilities in the material actually start arising from that very small length scales.
And so that during that period, that postdoc period, that's when I started understanding that and developing these ideas around these small length scales. The other thing that was really exciting about MIT was the entrepreneurial vibe. It's a really exciting place for that.
And, in fact, that was really where the first conversation started that led to Swift solar, the founding of Swift Solar, with a colleague there, who's now the CEO, Joel Jean, working together with him closely in the lab. He was a PhD student at the time. We had some really exciting ideas together with our colleagues at Stanford as well, who were also co founders.
And also some of us, in fact, bridge back and date back to our Oxford days together. Several of us moved across the US to work there.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:11:52
What was so particular at MIT that you found so inspiring in terms of entrepreneurship? What was it about that made you...
Sam Stranks
00:12:02
I think, yeah, it's hard to put a finger on. It's part of the fabric of the institute.
I think almost all students, each student who comes into the lab, whether they're an undergraduate student or a graduate PhD student or a postdoc, there's sort of some excitement about how that technology could be used or commercialized or licensed out. And, in fact, there's almost a. Many of the students I interact with, there is a sort of a mindset that that's a pathway they want to follow.
They want to take, you know, have an idea in the lab that they can then take and spin out. And I think there's. MIT facilitates that really well, there's a very good system in place there.
I actually think Cambridge does a very good job of that, too.
But MIT, I think, is very much the model for how one can take, you know, really quite fundamental lab based research and spin it out and be very successful at doing that.
Jacob Butler
00:12:50
So you mentioned Swift solar. Do you want to tell us a bit more about what this company does?
Sam Stranks
00:12:54
Yeah. So Swift Solar is a us based company based in California.
The aim is to produce very high efficiency solar modules using these halo perovskite materials. So it's something where we can layer two perovskites together, or layer perovskite and silicon together.
So silicon is the current mainstream technology for photovoltaics.
We can add a perovskite layer on top and actually, which is a tandem technology and move well beyond the efficiency of silicon and in the longer term, doing that with replacing silicon and doing that with two perovskite layers. So these two layers absorb slightly different regions of the solar spectrum, slightly different colors.
So working together, they can get around the traditional efficiency limits that one layer alone would have.
We're commercializing this, this technology, particularly towards the high efficiency solar, and particularly thinking about how scalable ways to manufacture these materials and how to make them extremely stable for decades.
Jacob Butler
00:13:56
So I imagine that's quite a different sort of mindset than one you'd have in the lab when you're working in those nanoscales and very sort of fundamental technologies. Is that something you actively sought out?
Sam Stranks
00:14:05
Yes, it is, and I think it's something I really like having that connection with the big picture and the scale up and those very different scientific and engineering questions.
And we may be focusing on the lab, but they actually do connect quite strongly, because I mentioned before about how the nanoscale and the micro scale really do matter.
We're seeing these heterogeneities on small length scales that might not seem significant, but actually do end up mattering for the large scale modules.
So, for example, we see very small phases that can appear in the manufacturing process that end up being sites that degrade the cell and start degrading the performance.
So we need to understand them, and that's really what we're doing in the lab, understanding why they're there, how they're there, and then thinking about solutions to remove those unwanted phase impurities. And that ultimately will help the long term scale up and also the performance.
Jacob Butler
00:14:57
Yeah. And you talked about them sort of degrading over time and things like that.
I mean, obviously, this is technology that can be sat in the field for years, if not decades. I mean, you talked about simulating where in our previous conversation is that sort of, can you explain a bit about that and why that's useful for them?
Sam Stranks
00:15:11
Yeah. Yeah. So a big challenge is. So currently, if you buy a silicon module, it will last for 25 years. It'll be guaranteed for 25 years.
It'll probably last for 40 years. Some of the best panels. So there's a bar that's set very high for a new technology that needs to come through one of the big challenges.
Well, there's two challenges with that for the Perovskites. One is a new technology.
So to be able to validate it to last for decades, you need to think about ways to test it in an accelerated fashion that we can get feedback much, much faster than decades. Even over even months of testing, we can understand what that would be equivalent to in terms of years in the field.
So we and others in the field are coming up with methods for testing cells at elevated temperature, for example, with continuous operation, with different bias conditions, to really try and mimic the field operation conditions, particularly to get feedback on, again, some of these impurities, these performance losses, and how that could feed back to the manufacturing process. And the second is that it's an emerging material. It's not yet stable enough to say it would last.
That we can say with confidence that it will last for 25 to 40 years. That's a materials challenge that still needs to be solved.
There's been very good progress in the last few years to make the material a lot more stable. The first configurations, even that we were working with in 2012 type region, they were quite unstable.
But over the decade, effectively, since there's been a lot of work on the compositions, a lot of work on the deposition process to make them a lot more stable. And now, even over the last year, some of the results that are coming out, both from academia but also from industry, are looking extremely exciting.
And I think I would put probably now it's been validated at least at five years, and it's mainly a function of it hasn't been tested for long enough to guarantee longer than that. So there's still some way to go to get to the 25 years, but there's a very exciting trajectory.
Jacob Butler
00:17:05
So it's at least five years for now.
Sam Stranks
00:17:07
At least validated for five years. I would say it will last for longer, but we're not yet able to guarantee 25 years.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:17:15
So how is it back and forth between your work in the lab at like, research, fundamental level, and in your company and between the lab and the industry, how does that work? So one feeds the other, but does the other feed back?
Sam Stranks
00:17:34
Yeah, very good question. I think the role is quite separate. There is, you know, we're focusing on the fundamental work in the lab, in the company.
I'm a co founder and early on was obviously very heavily involved. I'm now a scientific advisor in the company.
And really more giving the academic perspective on what we and others in the academic world are learning and how that can feed to the industry we do.
Actually, it is both ways, because I think particularly what's important is understanding from industry what the questions are we need to tackle, because I think we as academics are sometimes at fault of projecting what we think is the problem onto industry. But actually when you speak to them, they have a very specific set of questions they want answered.
And that's where there's very fruitful collaboration as well.
And that's not just this example that applies in many other areas of industry, academia, interaction, where that is fruitful, where we can really understand the questions and then tailor some of the academic approaches and questions towards those problems.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:18:33
Does it help focuses your research? Because it's almost like looking for a needle in a haystack sometimes.
Sam Stranks
00:18:41
Yeah, it is. I think it does focus in that sense, but I think it's important also, that's not the only work we work on.
It's the real value of academia is that we have freedom and new ideas that can be disruptive, that come along that we haven't thought of before, others haven't thought of before.
Important to have the mechanisms there such that a lab can produce these new things that could eventually feed onto existing or new industry, including through new startups. So I think that's, again, also why I find my academic role really exciting, is that there is those new elements.
It's not just solving some of the problems that industry want, but also thinking about how we can generate the new technology that could surpass what is currently out there.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:19:26
Actually, do you want to tell us a little bit about the other big questions that you're trying to answer in your lab, in your research work?
Sam Stranks
00:19:34
Yeah, so we have a big stream is on photovoltaic research, but we're also looking at lighting technologies as well.
So we're looking at, in fact, if you run a solar cell in reverse, so solar cell is harvesting sunlight and generating electricity, if you run it the other way around where you inject electricity and you get light out. So that's an LED. So effectively, the same materials that we've been using for solar cells are actually very good led materials as well.
And so one of the big strand of our lab is thinking about how to produce efficient blue, red and green emitters, for example, that could be used for displays or for white panel lighting as well, to make more efficient and better color quality white lighting.
And then another area that we're working on actually is in actual medical imaging and applying some of these semiconductors, where, again, we're developing for pv, but for x ray detection.
So here for x ray detection in medical images, for example, what we need is, in a solar cell, we only need 500 material to absorb those optical invisible photons. For an x ray, we need millimeters of material.
So essentially, we're moving towards very thick solar cells that harvest the x rays and then generate electrons and holes that we can collect. So it operates like a solar cell, but for a very different application.
And so we're developing these halide perovskite materials towards x ray detector applications. And really, the application is moving towards very, very sensitive x ray detection.
So if you have a patient, for example, having a CT scan, the x ray passes through the patient. That detector on the other end, we can make extremely sensitive.
And so that means that the dose of that x ray that has to pass through the patient can come down significantly. And one of the limitations at the moment of x ray scanning, or CT scanning, for example, is dose.
So that radiologists would need to consider, and the patient would need to consider if it's the right thing to have a scan or nothing.
We want to flip that around and have it so that it's so low dose that you can even use it for screening, so you can have think about very early stage disease detection, for cancer, for heart disease, and monitoring over time. And that's something very exciting. We know to radiologists as well, how they could, for example, see the change in something over time.
If there's a small tumour, very early stage of that, they could see how that's evolving over time, and then they can make decisions on. On how to treat that in a much more guided fashion. So we're very excited about this.
We actually have a very recent startup spinning up from the lab here in Cambridge, clarity sensors, to commercialize this technology. It's very early stage, but we have a very exciting trajectory here, leveraging these very efficient halide perovskite materials towards medical.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:22:22
Imaging detectors, and a very subtle way of bringing back the medical into your work and to please your family as well. I work in medical sciences as well. Well done.
Sam Stranks
00:22:36
Yes, something very exciting to me. I think it's another... Healthcare is another very big problem, and if we can use again the physics and the semiconductors we can produce to make an impact there, it's a fantastic opportunity.
Jacob Butler
00:22:48
I do think it's great about physics that you find this technology and it's useful for generating electricity, generating light, and also slightly different format. You can use it in a very different sort of environment for doing very different sort of things.
So from the outside sort of industry and academia look very different, but you're someone who crosses both those boundaries. Do you find it sort of a difficult process moving from one to the other, or.
Sam Stranks
00:23:09
I think certainly early on it was a very steep learning curve, learning the business world and particularly, you know, being involved a very early stage in a startup, you learn a lot of things very quickly, and others have, who've done setups, I'm sure will have the exact same experience that they've had to be doing all these multiple tasks at once while learning how to do these multiple tasks. So there's a challenge in that, but that has been very rewarding.
I've certainly learned a lot about the business world and how these technologies could fit into that, how the things we do in the lab could end up making an impact in terms of interacting between the two.
I think it's also certainly helped with interactions with other industry partners and how we work with them to understand the working mechanisms of a business, of technology business and how that moves along. And that's certainly enriched my career a lot.
I really like that bridge between the fundamental work we do in the lab, the teaching that we do, but then how that could then be applied to the industry world.
Jacob Butler
00:24:13
So you talked about sort of needing that change of perspective at times in our earlier chat. I mean, how do you view the different perspectives of business and sort of research?
Sam Stranks
00:24:21
Yeah, I think, well, I mean, both extremely important and I think, you know, it's working out where, you know, even me as an individual, where I can sort of get the most, you know, add the most value as someone who can work as an academic but also have a hat on as, you know, as someone in industry, what works with industry or an industry. And I think that's making sure finding that balance is tricky.
And I think it comes back to the fact really the academic world can produce the new ideas and the new innovative things that industry just don't have the bandwidth for, or just don't have the resource for that industry could then adopt. I think that's, again something I find very exciting.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:25:05
So looking back at a younger version of you, did you ever think that you would like, did you have a clear picture of what your career would look like? Did you picture you as an entrepreneur or an academic or at this hybrid model?
Sam Stranks
00:25:24
It's a very good question. Well, I think when I look back long enough ago, I saw myself as an australian footballer. So a very different world. Yes.
And actually I played a lot of australian football to sort of semi pro level in Australia.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:25:39
But which one is the australian football? Is that soccer or is it.
Sam Stranks
00:25:43
No, it's completely different game. It's a mix between rugby and soccer. It probably is the best way to do that one. Somewhat similar to gaelic football, if you know the Irish game.
Anyway, that was a very different path than when I was. If you asked my probably twelve year old self that would have been my answer. But I think I. Yeah, I think I did. I. When I was a, when I was at school and even an undergraduate, I didn't really know what an academic does and maybe that's something that's sort of a common theme. It's, you know, we. The way you interact with academics as an undergraduate is you see them as lecturer.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:26:20
Yeah.
Sam Stranks
00:26:20
But you don't actually know. Most of the time is actually spent. A lot of the time is spent on research and that's a whole different world.
You know, they're nothing resting over the. Taking a break over the summer. It is getting back to the other work and I think that's.
I always enjoyed, you know, the disciplines I studied and it was a natural path for me to then just keep going and, you know, towards an academic career.
I didn't know much about research either, even as an undergraduate, until, you know, doing a final year honours master's project where you really get to dive into research. So that was something, an uncertainty of, if I want to be an academic, research has to obviously be something I like doing. And it happened to be.
I really liked it, in fact liked it even more than the theory and the coursework I was doing. So. Yeah, but I think I wouldn't say as, you know, 15 or something, I would say, yes, what I'm doing now is what I think I would do.
The entrepreneurial stuff again, really only came during my period at MIT. I think I saw myself as an academic and.
And I think traditionally this sort of bridge between academia and industry or even spin outs was frowned upon. It's sort of not something that's natural. I think MIT is a very good exception.
I think Cambridge is a very good exception where it's very much that it is.
There are many academics who are very successful at doing it, but by and large the academic world and the physics world, it's uncommon to have a startup or entrepreneurial of activity. So I never thought of myself I would be an entrepreneur until I started learning about the entrepreneurial world and realizing I enjoyed it.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:27:54
It really is a matter of grasping the opportunities when they come.
Sam Stranks
00:27:57
Yeah, exactly.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:27:59
So you talked about teaching already quite a lot, but let's go back to it because it's an important part of your activities as well. And you setting up PhD programs and you funded this charity with your colleagues. Do you want to talk to us about sustain aid first?
Sam Stranks
00:28:17
Yeah, sure. Yeah. So sustain education. So it's a charity that we founded.
So me together with two of my former postdoc and a former PhD students, Stuart McPherson and Beth Tennyson, who are both here in the Cavendish and I suppose the challenge we want to solve is that at the moment climate and the fact there is an impending climate crisis, primary school kids know that this is a problem. They're taught that there is a growing problem, but they're not taught that there are solutions.
So actually there's a growing issue that many 1011 year olds are getting this climate anxiety that's coming in because they know there's a big problem and it's probably them who will be facing that problem because unfortunately they'll be the ones, the peak of their career when 2050 comes.
So what we wanted to do, the aim of sustain it, is to develop teaching materials that teach not just the problem but also that there are solutions and technical solutions coming along that can feed into this.
There are renewable energy technologies coming along teaching them about what they are and what the future of those look like and how they play a role in decarbonising, decarbonising society. And so we've developed a whole lot of teaching modules with packages that we have open source and make available to teachers.
We piloted it in a few schools across Cambridge here over the last four years and now we're in 40 schools across the country and in fact around 1200 teachers who've downloaded the materials now from our website and teachers are then free to adapt them how they like to fit their own curricula. And so this has been really exciting. It's something again, slightly different world again with education at a much earlier level.
We of course had lots of good input from teachers along the way to develop those materials and it's something we want to scale further as well because it's something we see, it could be in every school across the country, or even even broader than that, because they are materials that can be sent out remotely and teachers can then pick up and adapt up them as they like and fit into the year five and year six curricula.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:30:26
And beyond reassuring those youngsters that solutions are possible and there is a way to try and fix or solve the issues. Are you also hoping to inspire future physicists, scientists?
Sam Stranks
00:30:46
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's another.
I mean, we sort of embedded within the curriculum is generating the excitement about the physics that underpins a lot of these technology innovations. And so we do, for example, as part of the module we have, we supply for the teachers.
They have a little device that can measure the wind, the students can measure the wind, and they can also measure the solar intensity.
So every day in the schoolyard, they would go out and take a reading of the wind and the solar, the sunlight, and then they'll log it in their logbook and actually it goes on the website. And so those students get opportunity to work with numbers and how to convert numbers.
They, in fact, do some calculations of how much energy that would be in total across the course of a week or across the course of the year. So they get to know some of the maths that is needed.
But, yeah, but really there is a good opportunity to inspire what will be the next class of physicists and scientists and engineers who'll be the ones really tackling these problems towards 2050.
Jacob Butler
00:31:48
I think it's great to show these kids that there's lots of ways they can help as well, because the kids we get through for the outreach things, quite often the ones that want to help see medicine is the only way they can do that. Whereas actually, in the real world, there's huge numbers of careers with huge numbers and things. Great to show these things at an early age.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:32:04
On a side note, I just remembered, I think we interviewed Stuart Macpherson, who is the one of your founders. We'll put the link in the show notes as well for anyone who wants to listen back.
And in terms of the PhD programs here at Cambridge, do you want to tell us about the new one you're setting up?
Sam Stranks
00:32:26
Yeah, exactly. So we've just set up a new PhD program. It's just been approved actually a few weeks ago. So it's a PhD in sustainable energy materials innovation.
It's going to be a PhD program that is, it's in fact based here in the Cavendish, but it spans across five different departments across the university. And the aim there is for students to come in to do research on new energy materials technologies towards the net zero industry.
And I think one of the really unique parts about the course is that students will be in a cohort where they're together with colleagues who are all working on different energy technologies.
So I have fellow students, there might be one focusing on battery technologies, another focusing on solar technologies, another perhaps on low energy computing technologies.
And they'll be able to interact and use expertise across those different fields and interconnect those expertise, which is something we've found really good spot examples of that already happening across West Cambridge. We want to formalize that in a course where students can really benefit from that.
And so the students coming out will have not just their own research in their particular area, but broad awareness across the energy technology landscape, where their own energy technology fits into the wider energy landscape and how it fits in, for example, how policy plays a role in that, how finances play roles, how behavioral change plays a role in that. So it's something we see is very exciting. So this is together with Sian Dutton, and we're kind directors of the course.
We'll be taking our first PhD students in the 2025 intake, October 2025. So we'll be in the next few months advertising out for admissions for the course.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:34:04
Excellent. We'll put also the links in the show notes.
Jacob Butler
00:34:07
Yeah, sounds excellent course. And from a lot of our sort of interviewees, we've heard about the important, exciting things happen at those fuzzy edges between disciplines.
And it sounds like a course really built around encouraging that sort of cross pollination and wider understanding, at least what the context in which you're working.
Sam Stranks
00:34:23
Exactly. Yeah.
So that's, I think, you know, even for my own career and I know many other colleagues are the same, we find, you know, that the interactions with the other disciplines is where some really good innovation happens.
And, in fact, in many ways, it's, you know, I, I'm in, you know, chemical engineering biotechnology department is my core appointment, but I'm a physicist, and we have many examples of that across Cambridge. But as a academics working in many different fields and departments.
And I think that's really adds to the richness of this place that we have people who work at the disciplined edges and interact really well.
And that's, I think, something that we, you know, it's exciting for our own research, but also for the students and the postdoc and the staff who come along and interact with us and the programs.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:35:04
That's also the principle of the natural science tripos, like for undergraduate students. Right. To have that overview of all the disciplines.
Sam Stranks
00:35:13
Exactly, yeah. It's core to Cambridge and I think it's really important we do that.
You know, students can come in and have a broad, it's a bit ticky their first years in natural sciences because many students like myself, you know, may do subjects that we had never done at school, never knew existed and end up, you know, being a big part of what we actually end up doing in our careers. So it's. I think that's really important.
I think in many places in the UK people come in directly to, you know, to a physics degree, for example, but don't get that broad understanding. So I think we're quite fortunate here to have this system. I'm very happy.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:35:46
So it's only logical that it continues throughout the PhD program.
Jacob Butler
00:35:52
I think I'm going to bottle that answer for next time I help out the open days and I get the students asking me, why can't I just do physics?
Sam Stranks
00:35:58
Yeah. Yeah. And I think another.
I think again, something that excites me a lot is, is that physics does underpin a lot of these, you know, a lot of what we see in the world, a lot of technologies.
And that's, again, why I find as a physicist, I really like working in these areas that apply, that I can use the physics to apply them in these different areas.
Jacob Butler
00:36:18
Lovely. And any other plans for the future that you wanted to bring up that we've not gone through or anything else you wanted to add to finish us off?
Sam Stranks
00:36:25
No, I think that covers everything. I hope we can make meaningful impact on, on climate change and on these big global challenges.
And that's through both the technology but also through the students and postdocs and staff that we train through the system, that this collective effort will make the impact in the long term. And that's something that excites me a lot.
Jacob Butler
00:36:48
Thank you very much for talking to us today.
Sam Stranks
00:36:49
Thanks.
Vanessa Bismuth
00:36:50
Thank you very much, Sam. So thank you, Sam Stranks, for joining us today.
As always, if you'd like to learn more about what we've discussed in this episode and more generally about our work at the Cavendish lab, please have a look at the show notes or go to our website, www. Dot phy dot cam dot ac dot UK.
If you have any questions you would like to ask our physicists, head to social media and tag us with the hashtag hash peopledoingphysics. This episode was recorded and edited by Chris Brockley. Thank you for listening to people doing physics. We'll be back next month. Bye.
