We are proud to announce that Dr Silvia Hristova, who defended her PhD thesis in our group last year, was awarded by The Union of Scientists in Bulgaria for best PhD thesis in 2020. The thesis of Silvia considers the possibility of using controlled proton transfer as an elementary process in the molecular machinery. The concept is based on the use of single molecules as “hardware” (wires, logics, rectifiers, switches, etc.), which can be then assembled into working devices. The idea for tautomeric switches has central role in the overall study. The design of such systems is a real challenge, because they have to obey variety of practical requirements among which the clean interconversion between structurally different states is the most important one. The results included in the thesis were published in 4 papers in high ranked international journals (Dyes and Pigments, Journal of Molecular Liquids, Chemistry) and are cited in the scientific literature.
Link to the video of the ceremony (~ 46th minute): https://youtu.be/FTblj9-skkI
Link to the summary of the PhD thesis: https://www.orgchm.bas.bg/dokumenti/proceduri/PhD/2020/SHristova/SH_avtoreferat_en.pdf