Richard Eric Parry Winpenny is a British

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe ...

and a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...

in the

Department of Chemistry An academic department is a division of a university or school faculty devoted to a particular academic discipline. This article covers United States usage at the university level. In the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, universi ...

at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

. Winpenny's research is within the fields of

inorganic chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with synthesis and behavior of inorganic and organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subjects of organic chemistry. The distinction between the two disc ...

and magnetochemistry, specifically the areas of single-molecule magnetism, inorganic synthesis, supramolecular chemistry and polymetallic caged complexes.

Education

Winpenny was educated at Sandfields Comprehensive School, Port Talbot, where he was influenced by his excellent chemistry teachers, John Hardie and Vivien Davies, to study chemistry at university. He thus completed both his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a ...

in 1985 and 1988 respectively. His PhD on ''New heterometallic polynuclear complexes'' was supervised by David Goodgame.

Research and career

Upon completing his PhD, Winpenny completed his

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

with John Fackler, Jr at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

from 1988 to 1989 where he researched on

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is u ...

of gold clusters. In 1990, he joined the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

as an academic, and in 2000, moved to

The University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

as the chair of

. Winpenny was the Associate Dean for Research in the University of Manchester Faculty of Science and Engineering from September 2008 to April 2010. He was also the director of the Photon Science Institute from October 2009 to April 2014. Winpenny was also the head of the

at the

from August 2014 to April 2018, and is the director and chief scientific officer at Sci-Tron(Ltd.). He was also awarded

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to univers ...

(EPSRC) Established Career Fellowship (January 2018 to December 2022) and also holds a

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientif ...

Advanced Fellowship from September 2018 to August 2022.

Notable work

Winpenny is classed as one of the leading synthetic chemists of polymetallic cage complexes. He has developed a wide range of heterometallic rings as a new class of molecular magnets, which have been exploited to develop new physics and techniques with proposals to use them in

quantum information processing Quantum information science is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to understand the analysis, processing, and transmission of information using quantum mechanics principles. It combines the study of Information science with quantum effects in p ...

. These rings also show unique capabilities to act as resist materials for

electron beam lithography Electron-beam lithography (often abbreviated as e-beam lithography, EBL) is the practice of scanning a focused beam of electrons to draw custom shapes on a surface covered with an electron-sensitive film called a resist (exposing). The electron ...

(EBL). A wide range of literature has been published by Winpenny on the synthesis, structural and property analysis of heterometallic rings, polymetallic cages,

single molecule magnet A single-molecule magnet (SMM) is a metal-organic compound that has superparamagnetic behavior below a certain blocking temperature at the molecular scale. In this temperature range, a SMM exhibits magnetic hysteresis of purely molecular origin.

s, and

f-block A block of the periodic table is a set of elements unified by the atomic orbitals their valence electrons or vacancies lie in. The term appears to have been first used by Charles Janet. Each block is named after its characteristic orbital: s-blo ...

and

d-block A block of the periodic table is a set of elements unified by the atomic orbitals their valence electrons or vacancies lie in. The term appears to have been first used by Charles Janet. Each block is named after its characteristic orbital: s-b ...

metal complexes. The published work by Winpenny has gained more than 24,000 citations as of 2020. In 2007, Winpenny also reported the first intrinsic spin-lattice (''T₁'') and phasecoherence (''T₂'') relaxation times in molecular

nanomagnet A nanomagnet is a submicrometric system that presents spontaneous magnetic order (magnetization) at zero applied magnetic field (remanence). The small size of nanomagnets prevents the formation of magnetic domains (see single domain (magnetic)). ...

s. The results showed that the value of ''T₂'' in deuterated samples were of several orders of magnitude longer than the duration of spin manipulations which satisfies the prerequisite for the deployment of molecular nanomagnets in quantum information applications. In 2016, a research led by Winpenny, Nicholas F. Chilton and Yan‐Zhen Zheng was able to report a monometallic

dysprosium Dysprosium is the chemical element with the symbol Dy and atomic number 66. It is a rare-earth element in the lanthanide series with a metallic silver luster. Dysprosium is never found in nature as a free element, though, like other lanthanides, i ...

complex which showed the largest effective energy barrier to magnetic relaxation of U_eff = 1815 K. The research also showed the largest blocking temperature (T_B) for a monometallic complex.

Awards and nominations

* RSC Prize for Emerging Technologies in the area of materials (2016) * Ludwig Mond Award (2016) * Fellow of the

Learned Society of Wales The Learned Society of Wales (Welsh: Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru) is a learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh natio ...

(2016) *

Tilden Prize The Tilden Prize is an award that is made by the Royal Society of Chemistry for advances in chemistry. The award was established in 1939 and commemorates Sir William A. Tilden, a prominent British chemist. The prize runs annually with up to thre ...

(2011) * Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (2009)

Major reviews and publications

* * * * *

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winpenny, Richard Living people British chemists Academics of the University of Manchester 21st-century chemists Alumni of Imperial College London Date of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)