Transparent organic electronic and optoelectronic devices are nowadays emerging technologies for future applications, for example in smart windows and in photovoltaic cells. The attributes of organic materials include large and ultrafast nonlinear optical responses and large colour tuneability. However, the electrical conductivity of organic materials is usually poor and this limits their utility. Here we propose to pursue a new type of organic material for such applications, a material that has a high electrical conductivity and thus has the potential to revolutionise the field: the material is graphene. This is a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, with spectacular strength, flexibility, transparency, and electrical conductivity. The proposed project is directed specifically at tuning the electronic properties of graphene in order to allow the potential of this material to be exploited in transparent electronic and optoelectronic devices. The outputs of the project, the development of graphene-based transparent devices, will be fundamental to the commercial and the economic development of transparent electronics. So far, chemical functionalization of graphene with different molecular species revealed that each molecular specie can be used to accumulate electrons or holes in graphene ( that is n- or p-type doping of graphene). This suggests the possibility that different doping of adjacent graphene areas can be used to engineer electron/hole interfaces also known as p-n junctions, which are the core of large part of nowadays electronic devices. Other chemical species such as hydrogen and fluorine atoms attached to graphene can modify its band structure by opening a band gap in the otherwise zero-gap semimetallic material, providing the opportunity to use graphene as a truly organic semiconductor. The potential afforded by the chemical functionalization of graphene materials is still in its infancy, and it holds great promise for future integrated optoelectronics. The tremendous advantages of integrating devices on the same chip in electronics naturally suggest that the same be done with electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, integration of optoelectronic devices has proven to be a difficult challenge because of inherent incompatibilities. For example, a light-emitting diode based on a p-n structure has a structure quite different from the structure of any transistor. The exploitation of graphene will allow this incompatibility to be transcended. Intelligent schemes of functionalization of graphene hold the promise to accomplish the patterning of transparent standard resistors, capacitors and transistor structures integrated with light-emitting and detecting devices which constitutes a fundamental step towards applications such as smart windows. This pioneering research is at the core of this proposal.

CRUST takes advantage of the UK's leadership in uncertainty evaluation of earthquake source and ground motion (Goda [PI] and University of Bristol/Cabot Research Institute) and on-shore tsunami impact research (Rossetto [Co-I] and University College of London/EPICentre [Earthquake and People Interaction Centre]) to develop an innovative cross-hazard risk assessment methodology for cascading disasters that promotes dynamic decision-making processes for catastrophe risk management. It cuts across multiple academic fields, i.e. geophysics, engineering seismology, earthquake engineering, and coastal engineering. The timeliness and critical needs for cascading multi-hazards impact assessments have been exemplified by recent catastrophes. CRUST fills the current gap between quasi-static, fragmented approaches for multi-hazards and envisaged, dynamic, coherent frameworks for cascading hazards. CRUST combines a wide range of state-of-the-art hazard and risk models into a comprehensive methodology by taking into account uncertainty associated with predictions of hazards and risks. The work will provide multi-hazards risk assessment guidelines and tools for policy-makers and engineering/reinsurance industries. The proposal capitalises on a breakthrough technology for generating long-waves achieved by Rossetto. CRUST is composed of four work packages (WPs): WP1-'Ground shaking risk modelling due to mega-thrust subduction earthquakes'; WP2-'Tsunami wave and fragility modelling due to mega-thrust subduction earthquakes'; WP3-'Integrated multi-hazards modelling for earthquake shaking and tsunami'; and WP4-'Case studies for the Hikurangi and Cascadia subduction zones'. In WP1-WP3, the research adopts the 2011 Tohoku earthquake as a case study site, since this event offers extensive datasets for strong motion data, tsunami inundation, and building damage survey results, together with other geographical and demographical information (e.g. high-resolution bathymetry data and digital elevation model). The aims of WP1 are: to generate strong motion time-histories based on uncertain earthquake slips, reflecting multiple asperities (large slip patches) over a fault plane (WP1-1); to characterise spatiotemporal occurrence of aftershocks using global catalogues of subduction earthquakes (WP1-2); and to conduct probabilistic seismic performance assessment of structures subjected to mainshock-aftershock sequences (WP1-3). WP2 comprises tsunami wave profile and inundation simulation using uncertain earthquake slips (WP2-1); characterisation of tsunami loads to structures in coastal areas through large-scale physical experiments using an innovative long wave generation system at HR Wallingford (WP2-2); and development of analytical tsunami fragility models in comparison with field observations and experiments (WP2-3). The WP2 will be conducted in collaboration with academic collaborators from Kyoto University and Tohoku University (Japan). WP3 integrates the model components developed from WP1 and WP2 into a comprehensive framework for multi-hazards risk assessment for the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (WP3-1). Then, practical engineering tools for the multi-hazards method will be developed in WP3-2. Finally, in WP4, the developed multi-hazards methodology will be applied to the Hikurangi and Cascadia subduction zones. The assessments are done in a predictive mode, and these case studies will be conducted in close collaboration with academic partners, GNS Science (New Zealand) for the Hikurangi zone, and researchers at Western University and University of British Columbia (Canada) for the Cascadia zone.

This is a long-range basic research project that targets the synthesis of a new crystalline materials family whose chemical, electronic and magnetic properties will create opportunities in fundamental science. To date, such advances have mainly been made in inorganic materials. This project will extend that opportunity to materials where the electronically active component is an organic anion. Our understanding of materials such as silicon and copper relies on a description of the electrons in which they do not interact strongly with each other. The electronic behaviour of materials in which the electrons do interact strongly, known as correlated materials, differs from such classical free electron materials. Correlated materials have been a fruitful source of new electronic and magnetic ground states and properties. This behaviour has overwhelmingly been observed in inorganic systems, because of the capability offered by inorganic solid state materials chemistry to position multiple distinct metal cations and thus predictably arrange spins, orbitals and charges. We have no such synthetic capability or crystal chemical understanding for organic correlated electron materials. The one example of success is the fulleride superconductors such as K3C60, where the underlying crystal chemistry is based on sphere packing that is directly analogous to well-studied inorganic systems, enabling extensive synthetic control and property design. While currently offering an outstanding range of properties, all-inorganic systems are restricted to the atoms provided by the periodic table, whose crystal and electronic structures are controlled by the ionic size and orbital characteristics of those elements. If we could achieve similar general control of structures based on electronically active organic species, such as anions derived by reduction of unsaturated molecules studied here, the resulting structural and electronic properties would be determined by the molecular size, shape and electronic structure. In contrast to the inorganic ionic systems, these steric and electronic structures of the organic molecules that would be the building blocks of such materials are controllable by synthetic chemistry. In two recent papers in Nature Chemistry, we have reported chemical synthesis approaches that produce crystalline salts of reduced unsaturated aromatic molecules and access new electronic states, including a candidate for the quantum spin liquid ground state in a three-dimensional pi-electron based material. This advance demonstrates the potential to create a family of tuneable crystalline organic electronic materials beyond the fullerides. The project will establish this family, allowing the positioning of electronically and sterically tuneable building blocks to control electronic, magnetic, optical and charge storage properties. This will be achieved by developing the synthetic chemistry capability to produce crystalline materials from a broad range of unsaturated organic molecules. To generate materials of comparable compositional and structural complexity to the inorganic systems, we will apply and expand this chemistry to materials with multiple metal sites and with more than one molecular component. This will allow us to control extended electronic structure by positioning of and charge transfer between the molecular units to target geometrically frustrated magnetic lattices and mobile charges in quantum spin liquids as examples of the new electronic ground states this chemistry will enable. The compositions, charge states and structures of the resulting hydrocarbon salts will reveal the charge storage potential of this family of materials. We will use informatics techniques to guide efficient exploration of the chemical space, and apply a range of structural, thermodynamic, spectroscopic, electronic and magnetic measurement techniques with our international collaborators to identify the new electronic states that arise.