I survived my first trip to China, which is nice, because I plan to return thanks to a visiting fellowship from the Chinese National Science Foundation. Shanghai is a wonderful city full of many contradictions: new and old; big and small; rich and poor; open and closed. Fudan University is a classic example, being one of Shanghai’s oldest universities and yet having 30-story twin towers at its centre. From spending a few days in the Physics Department, you can see a few striking differences to Western academia: a full-day group meeting on a Sunday; students working from dawn until dusk, and no coffee machine in sight! There was no shortage of good science and an honest enthusiasm for research. An inspiring place to spend some time.
The visit was well timed, as some work on defects in quaternary solar cell materials (Cu2ZnSnS4) in collaboration with Fudan University was published in Applied Physics Letters this week: a succinct distillation of some complex defect chemistry.