Main Focus
My current research interests relate to three interconnected themes:
- Self-assembly and dis-assembly: how nanoscale building blocks can be induced to spontaneously form materials with emergent properties and behaviour.
- Chirality transfer: how the breaking of mirror symmetry at one scale (e.g. stereoisomerism of molecules) determines the properties of larger-scale structures.
- Optics: using light, especially visible light, to characterise and control soft matter systems.
A fascinating experimental system that combines these themes is the chiral self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals to form photonic films [1]. Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are rod-like nanoparticles that spontaneously form a left-handed cholesteric liquid crystal phase in aqueous suspension and can be used to create structurally coloured films (see https://www.mpikg.mpg.de/6828900/researchtopic-cellulose-nanocrystal-self-assembly for more info). I previously investigated the relationship between the morphology of individual CNC particles and their mesophase assembly, which elucidated the mechanism of chirality transfer across length-scales [2]. I have also explored the use of angle-resolved optical spectroscopy on CNC films as a way to infer the onset of colloidal gel or glass formation in the drying suspension [3].
Related publications:
[1] https://doi.org/10.1021/accountsmr.3c00019
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30226-6
[3] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2024/sm/d4sm00155a
Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Parton is a group leader in the Department of Sustainable and Bio-Inspired Materials, headed by Prof. Silvia Vignolini at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces.
Dr. Parton completed his undergraduate studies in Natural Sciences (Physics and Physical Chemistry) at University College London (UCL) and the California Institute of Technology, winning the MAPS Faculty Medal (2015). He obtained a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge, funded through the NanoDTC MRes+PhD program. He was awarded the ACS CELL Division Graduate Student Award (2023) and an MRS Silver Medal (2022). Following this, he was awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship at the University of Cambridge. He has been a Group Leader at Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces since September 2023 as well as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow since May 2024.