A UCLan Applied Physics student has secured international praise for a groundbreaking scientific research project.

The work of Erasmus exchange student, Ludwig Schreier, was published in a world leading science journal, for his innovative third year BSc project. 

Ludwig, 26, features on the March front cover of “Soft Matter” for his predictions of how nano-scale material structures could be manipulated aided by an ordinary electric field. 

The German exchange student said: “I enjoy being publicly recognised for my research work done at UCLan within the Computational Group of Dr Andrei Zvelindovsky.

“This Erasmus exchange shows what is possible by letting international scientists and students work together, sharing their knowledge,” he added.

The research work was achieved with the help of Marco Pinna, a research student within UCLan’s Computational Physics Group. 

Ludwig studied at the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden and until recently was an intern researcher at a software company in Cambridge, before returning to UCLan to continue his research.

Not only was his work published by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in March, but it was presented at the American Physical Society National Meeting, the largest international physics forum in Pittsburgh.

Ludwig, who is now a Master of Physics Degree student, said: “The collaboration was a starting poir me in the field of computational and soft matter physics.” 

He added that he sees many possibilities for the future and is grateful that the experience at UCLan has done so much for him in the field.

The year 2008 saw the welcome edition of a state-of-the-art undergraduate research laboratory for Computational Physics, enabled by a grant from UCLan’s Centre for Research-informed Teaching.

The centre also supported Ludwig’s summer internship at UCLan, giving him the opportunity to write up his dynamic, stimulating research paper.