Professor of Chemistry and Head of the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford

Professor Gus Hancock is a Professor of Chemistry and Head of the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory here in Oxford. He was an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin and then completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. His research interests are in the study of dynamic processes in the gas phase, using a range of laser and spectroscopic techniques. The work is relevant to areas as diverse as atmospheric chemistry and plasma etching of solids.

Optical Cavities Group: Professor Hancock has interests in the application and development of techniques using optical cavities for enhanced spectroscopic detection. Much of the work is also devoted to development of interesting new light sources for spectroscopic applications in fields such as atmospheric sensing and medical diagnostics.

Within the Reaction Dynamics subdivision of the Hancock Group, the photodissociation dynamics of atmospherically important species are investigated using resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization in conjunction with time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The Group are also studying FTIR, which can be used for a variety of studies on product vibrational state distributions in photochemistry and chemical reactions, on product branching ratios and kinetics of reactions of combustion and atmospheric interest, and on energy transfer processes.

A new project the Group is working in is one on Medical Diagnostics. This project is run as an interdisciplinary venture with the physiology department to assess the effects of stresses on the respiratory cycle, using sensitive absorption techniques.