Overview

I am a postdoctoral research fellow working with Bill Barnes to manipulate light on the nanoscale using organic materials in a variety of weird and wonderful ways. I am currently employed on the international SCOLED project, which aims to improve the efficiency of organic light-emitting diodes. From September 2017 until August 2023 I was employed on the ERC-funded PHOTMAT project. 

I mainly study strong light-matter coupling, a phenomenon that potentially allows one to modify the properties of molecules using light. I do this using a fun experimental technique called ellipsometry. This has yielded some surprising results, including cavity-free ultrastrong coupling and singular optics in organic thin films.

I am responsible for the running of the University of Exeter's ellipsometry lab. If you're interested in using ellipsometry in your work, please get in touch.

Prior to my appointment at Exeter I completed a PhD as part of the NOWNANO Centre for Doctoral Training in Nanoscience at the University of Manchester. During my PhD I studied propagating and collective plasmon resonances in metallic nanostructures, considering their potential applications in areas such as sensing and optoelectronics, particularly in combination with 2D materials such as graphene. My PhD thesis was published as part of the Springer Thesis Series.

My publications in peer-reviewed journals are listed on my Google Scholar profile.

Education and Employment

• 2017 -             Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Exeter
• 2013 - 2017   PhD in Physics, University of Manchester
• 2009 - 2013  MPhys(Hons) in Physics, University of Manchester

Back to top

Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 |

2024

• Thomas PA, Barnes WL. (2024) Selection Bias in Strong Coupling Experiments, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, volume 15, no. 6, pages 1708-1710, DOI:10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c03546. [PDF]

2023

• Thomas P, Tan WJ, Kravets VG, Grigorenko AN, Barnes WL. (2023) Non-Polaritonic Effects in Cavity-Modified Photochemistry (dataset), DOI:10.1002/adma.202309393. [PDF]
• Thomas PA, Tan WJ, Kravets VG, Grigorenko AN, Barnes WL. (2023) Non‐Polaritonic Effects in Cavity‐Modified Photochemistry, Advanced Materials, volume 36, no. 7, DOI:10.1002/adma.202309393. [PDF]
• Thomas PA, Tan WJ, Kravets VG, Grigorenko AN, Barnes WL. (2023) Non-polaritonic effects in cavity-modified photochemistry, DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2306.05506.

2022

• Menghrajani KS, Vasista AB, Tan WJ, Thomas PA, Herrera F, Barnes WL. (2022) Molecular Strong Coupling and Cavity Finesse. [PDF]
• Thomas PA, Menghrajani KS, Barnes WL. (2022) All-optical control of phase singularities using strong light-matter coupling, Nature Communications, volume 13, no. 1, DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-29399-x.
• Thomas P. (2022) All-optical control of phase singularities using strong light-matter coupling.

2021

• Thomas PA, Menghrajani KS, Barnes WL. (2021) All-optical control of phase singularities using strong light-matter coupling, DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2109.14487.
• Thomas P, Menghrajani KS, Barnes WL. (2021) Cavity-Free Ultrastrong Light-Matter Coupling, DOI:10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01695. [PDF]
• Tan WJ, Thomas P, Barnes W, Luxmoore I. (2021) Single vs. double anti-crossing in the strong coupling between surface plasmons and molecular excitons (dataset), DOI:10.24378/exe.3023. [PDF]
• Tan WJ, Thomas PA, Luxmoore IJ, Barnes WL. (2021) Single vs double anti-crossing in the strong coupling between surface plasmons and molecular excitons, The Journal of Chemical Physics, volume 154, no. 2, DOI:10.1063/5.0037864. [PDF]

2020

• Thomas PA, Tan WJ, Fernandez HA, Barnes WL. (2020) A new signature for strong light-matter coupling using spectroscopic ellipsometry, DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2004.13434.
• Thomas PA, Grigorenko AN. (2020) Two-dimensional and One-dimensional Periodic Structures for Sensing, Spectroscopy, Light Emission and Two-dimensional Materials, World Scientific Publishing, 201-236, DOI:10.1142/9789813270343_0006.
• Wu F, Singh J, Thomas PA, Ge Q, Kravets VG, Day PJ, Grigorenko AN. (2020) Ultrasensitive and rapid detection of malaria using graphene-enhanced surface plasmon resonance, 2D Materials, volume 7, no. 4, DOI:10.1088/2053-1583/aba88e.
• Thomas P, Tan WJ, Fernandez H, Barnes WL. (2020) A new signature for strong light-matter coupling using spectroscopic ellipsometry (dataset). [PDF]
• Thomas PA, Tan WJ, Fernandez HA, Barnes WL. (2020) A new signature for strong light-matter coupling using spectroscopic ellipsometry. [PDF]

2019

• Wu F, Thomas PA, Kravets VG, Arola HO, Soikkeli M, Iljin K, Kim G, Kim M, Shin HS, Andreeva DV. (2019) Layered material platform for surface plasmon resonance biosensing, Scientific Reports, volume 9, no. 1, DOI:10.1038/s41598-019-56105-7.

2018

• Thomas PA. (2018) Narrow Plasmon Resonances in Hybrid Systems, Springer Nature, DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-97526-9.
• Wu F, Singh JP, Thomas PA, Ivasenko O, De Feyter S, Kravets VG, Day PJR, Grigorenko AN. (2018) Ultrasensitive plasmonic biosensing, 2018 International Conference Laser Optics (ICLO), DOI:10.1109/lo.2018.8435650.

2017

• Thomas PA, Auton GH, Kundys D, Grigorenko AN, Kravets VG. (2017) Strong coupling of diffraction coupled plasmons and optical waveguide modes in gold stripe-dielectric nanostructures at telecom wavelengths, Scientific Reports, volume 7, no. 1, DOI:10.1038/srep45196.
• Kravets VG, Thomas PA, Grigorenko AN. (2017) Metallic binary alloyed superconductors for photogenerating current from dissociated water molecules using broad light spectra, Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, volume 9, no. 2, DOI:10.1063/1.4979821.
• Thomas PA, Wu F, Kravets VG, Ivasenko O, Day PJ, Grigorenko AN. (2017) Graphene-Based Plasmonic Biosensing, 2017 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC), DOI:10.1109/cleoe-eqec.2017.8087684.

2016

• Ansell D, Thackray BD, Aznakayeva DE, Thomas P, Auton GH, Marshall OP, Rodriguez FJ, Radko IP, Han Z, Bozhevolnyi SI. (2016) Hybrid graphene plasmonic waveguide modulators, DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1609.04734.
• Ansell D, Thackray BD, Aznakayeva DE, Thomas P, Auton GH, Marshall OP, Rodriguez FJ, Radko IP, Han Z, Bozhevolnyi SI. (2016) Hybrid grapheme plasmonic waveguide modulators, Synthesis and Photonics of Nanoscale Materials XIII, Proceedings of SPIE--the International Society for Optical Engineering, volume 9737, DOI:10.1117/12.2216521.
• Thomas PA, Marshall OP, Rodriguez FJ, Auton GH, Kravets VG, Kundys D, Su Y, Grigorenko AN. (2016) Nanomechanical electro-optical modulator based on atomic heterostructures, Nature Communications, volume 7, no. 1, DOI:10.1038/ncomms13590.

2015

• Thackray BD, Thomas PA, Auton GH, Rodriguez FJ, Marshall OP, Kravets VG, Grigorenko AN. (2015) Super-Narrow, Extremely High Quality Collective Plasmon Resonances at Telecom Wavelengths and Their Application in a Hybrid Graphene-Plasmonic Modulator, Nano Letters, volume 15, no. 5, pages 3519-3523, DOI:10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b00930.

2014

• Thackray BD, Kravets VG, Schedin F, Auton G, Thomas PA, Grigorenko AN. (2014) Narrow Collective Plasmon Resonances in Nanostructure Arrays Observed at Normal Light Incidence for Simplified Sensing in Asymmetric Air and Water Environments, ACS Photonics, volume 1, no. 11, pages 1116-1126, DOI:10.1021/ph5002186.
• Kravets VG, Schedin F, Pisano G, Thackray B, Thomas PA, Grigorenko AN. (2014) Nanoparticle arrays: From magnetic response to coupled plasmon resonances, Physical Review B, volume 90, no. 12, DOI:10.1103/physrevb.90.125445.

Back to top