Question: What's your favourite chemical? (I know you're a physicsist)

Ashley Cadby answered on 27 Jun 2012:

I have two, ones is caffeine. I love caffeine it’s there for me in the morning, it there for me in the afternoon and on Sunday we hang out all the time. However, I did my phd on one called polyfluorene. This is a polymer, a plastic similar to that used to make plastic bags. So why do I love it so? Well, firstly it’s the reason I got my phd and some of my most read papers. It’s a lovely yellow colour and when you pass electricity through it glows bright blue. People have used it to make displays for televisions and phones, so whenever I see OLEDs on a phone or a TV, I think my work led ( in some small way) to that technology.