Professor Robert Taylor

Meet...Robert Taylor

Photovoltaics and nanoscience
Condensed Matter Physics

We work among extraordinary people doing extraordinary things; get to know some of them by reading these quick-fire interviews.

Name: Robert Taylor
Job title: Head of Condensed Matter Physics

What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on two projects, one involving the University of Leicester where we will be looking at nanowires made of CdSe and CdS grown using a novel method that involves vortices in superfluid helium. The other is a project funded by the Moore Foundation led by Tristan Farrow and Vltako Vedral. Here, we will be trying to establish if it is possible to entangle living biological entities quantum mechanically.

Describe a typical day
As head of CMP my days are pretty crowded. There is always plenty of administrative work to do, proposals to authorise, students to deal with, references to write. I also teach at Queen’s and then, of course, there are the inevitable meetings. Around all this I try to fit in research aided by several graduate students and postdocs.

If you had an entire day at your disposal (not at work), what would be your ideal way to spend it?
I like walking, so an ideal day away from work would be a long work in the Cotswolds or along a river bank somewhere.

What is your favourite place in Oxford?
I am very fond of the Thames and Port Meadow and the Thames path, and I like to walk and cycle along it when I can. Wytham Woods are also a great place to be on a nice day.

What discovery would you like to see in your lifetime?
Having worked on quantum systems and single photon technology for many years I would love to see a large-scale quantum computer working that had enough Qubits to enable it to do some useful calculations and to move the whole field of intensive computation forward.