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Stuart Batten loves his job. "You can come in on a Tuesday morning and do something that nobody else on the planet has ever done before, then have lunch," he says.

Batten is breaking new ground in the field of crystal engineering: the analysis and design of crystal structures with the aim of controlling the way molecules assemble into solids. That will allow chemists to finely tune physical properties such as structure, magnetism, electrical conductivity and colour.

To explain the concept, Batten draws an analogy: "arranged one way, carbon atoms make diamond, the hardest material known to man. Arranged a different way, they make pencil lead soft enough to rub off on a page. What we're trying to do is the same thing – not using atoms – but using molecules to tailor the physical properties of things."

A particular area of interest in the field is the design of porous materials for use in emerging green technologies: to improve the energy density of stored hydrogen gas, or to sequester the carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power plants, for example. Other work focusses on precision-design of pharmaceuticals, with properties such as solubility and purity carefully controlled.

"The ultimate aim," says Batten, "is to gain enough control and understanding of the solid state so that we can tune the properties of materials for any application we like." At the moment, however, most of Batten's research is deliberately at the fundamental level. "Applications are a bonus, but they're not what drives us," he says.

Batten's most important work to date has been devising a system to describe the way polymers sit inside each other, or 'interpenetrate', in crystal structures. His team has also discovered an entirely new family of magnets, providing fundamental insights into how magnetism and crystal structure relate.
In an ideal world, says Batten, scientists would be free to wonder and imagine without the constraints of some ultimate purpose in mind. "Applied research will only give you incremental gains," he says. "Revolutions come from research that explores the fundamental nature of things."

For a full list of the winners of Cosmos Bright Sparks – the country's top 10 scientists under 40 as selected by COSMOS magazine – click here.