Dr Paul Shaw

Primary research interest
Photophysics of organic semiconductors
Lab website
Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics
About me
I completed my PhD on exciton diffusion in conjugated polymers in 2009 at the University of St Andrews before moving to The University of Queensland as a postdoctoral fellow working on the development of fluorescent dendrimers for the detection of explosives and the photophysics of organic semiconductors. In November 2011 I was awarded an ARC DECRA fellowship.
Research focus and collaborations
Photophysics of organic semiconductors
The development of organic semiconductors has the potential to revolutionise the design and fabrication of future optoelectronic devices. Such devices cover a wide range of applications and include solar cells, light-emitting diodes, transistors, lasers and photodiodes. Optimising the performance of these devices poses a significant challenge, as each is the product of multiple physical processes. My main research lies in the use of spectroscopy to understand the intrinsic properties of organic semiconductors outside of a device structure and then feeding this knowledge back into materials and optoelectronic device design. One focus of my research will be detecting the presence of long-lived non-emissive states that are normally difficult to observe but which can play a critical role in the operation of a device.
Explosives-sensing with fluorescence quenching
Rapid and reliable detection of explosives remains one of the most pressing security challenges faced today. Sensing based on the fluorescence quenching of organic semiconductors is one of the most attractive solutions to this problem because it can achieve high sensitivity in a handheld device. My research lies in the development of sensors based on fluorescent dendrimers and understanding how their sensing properties are related to their molecular structure.
Funded projects
- UQ Early Career Researcher (2014): "Time-resolved spectroscopic studies of organic solar cell materials"
- ARC Discovery Project (2013): "Detecting the invisible"
- ARC DECRA fellowship (2012): "Probing the excited states of organic semiconductor systems with photoinduced absorption spectroscopy"
Teaching interests
- PHYS4030 “Condensed Matter Physics: Electronic Processes in Crystals” (2011-2012) – 50% with support from ResTeach
Featured publications
- Armin, Ardalan, Kassal, Ivan, Shaw, Paul E., Hambsch, Mike, Stolterfoht, Martin, Lyons, Dani M., Li, Jun, Shi, Zugui, Burn, Paul L. and Meredith, Paul (2014) Spectral dependence of the internal quantum efficiency of organic solar cells: Effect of charge generation pathways. Journal of The American Chemical Society, 136 32: 11465-11472. doi:10.1021/ja505330x
- Shaw, Paul E., Cavaye, Hamish, Chen, Simon S. Y., James, Michael, Gentle, Ian R. and Burn, Paul L.(2013) The binding and fluorescence quenching efficiency of nitroaromatic (explosive) vapors in fluorescent carbazole dendrimer thin films. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 15 24: 9845-9853. doi:10.1039/c3cp51372f
- Tang, Guoqiang, Chen, Simon S. Y., Lee, Kwan H., Pivrikas, Almantas, Aljada, Muhsen, Burn, Paul L., Meredith, Paul and Shaw, Paul E. (2013) The nature and role of trap states in a dendrimer-based organic field-effect transistor explosive sensor. Applied Physics Letters, 102 24: . doi:10.1063/1.4810914
- Tang, Guoqiang, Chen, Simon S. Y., Aljada, Muhsen, Burn, Paul L., Meredith, Paul and Shaw, Paul E.(2013) Detection of explosive analytes using a dendrimer-based field-effect transistor. Organic Electronics, 14 5: 1255-1261. doi:10.1016/j.orgel.2013.02.021
- Shaw, Paul E., Chen, Simon S. Y., Wang, Xin, Burn, Paul L. and Meredith, Paul (2013) High-generation dendrimers with excimer-like photoluminescence for the detection of explosives. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 117 10: 5328-5337. doi:10.1021/jp4002884