Prof Paul T. Callaghan

Alan MacDiarmid Professor of Physical Sciences

School of Chemical and Physical Sciences
Victoria University, PO Box 600,
Wellington
New Zealand

Phone: +64-4-4635945
Fax: +64-4-4635237
Email: Paul.Callaghan@vuw.ac.nz

Projects and Areas of interest:

I enjoy dreaming up new ways of extracting information about molecules by manipulation of nuclear spins. And my particular interest in doing this is to gain insight regarding how molecules organise, align, and move about. Such insight is of some importance in helping physicists understand soft materials, self-assembly pathways to nanotechnologies, and the behaviour of complex fluids and porous media. Of course, such understandings can assist a whole array of applications, from food science, to biotechnology and to biomedicine. That's a motivational factor, but for me, it's not the main one.

Modern Nuclear Magnetic Resonance experiments are written in computer code, a bit like a musical score with parts for the radio-frequency pulses (on different nuclei if needs be) the three axes of magnetic field gradients gradients and the data acquisition phases, with repeats and loops to generate a multitude of dimensions. Designing a new NMR sequence is like writing a score for an orchestra. But if that "music" doesn't take account of the instrumentation limitations, and if it doesn't generate the right spin "dance", then it is of little value. And then, to analyse the radio signals returning from the atomic nuclear often requires a variety of mathematical tricks and transformations. That aspect of the science fascinates me as well.

These days, I mostly work in partnership with my research students and postdoctoral fellows, sometimes suggesting new ideas or tricks to them, and often learning from them as well. Sometimes I get on the spectrometer myself and try to keep my practical skills sharp. I would like to think that the techniques coming out of my lab are helping push forward our understanding of the way in which molecular properties determine mechanical and macroscopic dynamical properties in complex fluids and how molecules can be deformed by flow itself. (Rheo-NMR). I am also intrigued by the way in which NMR reveals the role of boundaries and impediments to molecular motion in influencing dispersion and flow (porous media). Finally, I dream of being able to take some of these methods outside the laboratory, using smart portable NMR instruments. This venture started with Antarctic research and has led to the formation of "magritek". For more on that se http://www.magritek.com.

Also, I like music and enjoy playing the horn!