The research projects in the Nano group cover a diverse range of subjects, specific information about the general research areas can be found on the research pages.
Nano Group, University of Southampton
Nano Group
Projects in the Nano Group
A MEMS Based Electrostatic Levitation and Control System for Target Delivery Applications
Principle investigators: mk1, is2, clc06r.
The aim of this project is to levitate and manipulate micromachined objects of various sizes and shapes using electrostatic fields. The project is part of a multidisciplinary EPSRC project that aims...
Antireflective surfaces by Nanosphere Lithography
From 2007.
Principle investigators: pjs05r, [hidden].
Inspired by nature's highly - evolved technique of producing antireflection in the eyes and wings of some species of moth, densely-packed pillars with heights and spacings of approximately 200 nm are...
Applications development for the Helium Ion Microscope
From 2012.
Principle investigators: Dr Stuart Boden, [hidden], Prof Harvey Rutt, FREng, FInstP, FOSA, FIEE, SMIEEE, CEng, CPhys, hm2.
The emerging field of helium ion microscopy (HIM) is rapidly establishing itself as a valuable surface imaging technique, capable of generating images exhibiting sub-nm resolution and a high depth of...
Biomimetic Nanostructured Surfaces for Antireflection in Photovoltaics
From October 2004.
Principle investigators: sab04r, [hidden], pjs05r.
The eyes and wings of some species of moth are covered in arrays of densely-packed pillars with heights and spacings of approximately 200 nm. These structures introduce a grading in the effective...
Development of a Low Acutation Voltage RF MEMS Switch
Principle investigators: Dr Kian S Kiang, mk1, Prof. Harold M H Chong.
Many investigations have been directed at reducing the operating actuation voltage of RF MEMS switches. One of the possible solutions is through the reduction of the mechanical spring constant of the...
Fast charging for supercapacitor banks
Principle investigators: William Redman-White, Rares Bodnar.
This project is concerned with rapid charging of supercapacitors as an alternative energy source to Li-Ion for portable appliacance that require high load current. The charger must operate from the...
Formation of Artificial Lipid Bilayers using Droplet Dielectrophoresis
Principle investigators: sa05r, Prof. Hywel Morgan, Dr Nicolas G Green.
We developed a new method for formation of artificial bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs) by the controlled, electrical manipulation of aqueous droplets immersed in a lipid-alkane solution. Droplet...
Impedance spectroscopy for label-free cell analysis
Principle investigators: dh2, Prof. Hywel Morgan.
Impedance spectroscopy (IS) represents a powerful label-free method for cell analysis. The technique allows quantitative measurement of the inherent electrical and dielectric properties of cells;...
Influence of 2D chirality on the transmission and diffraction from asymmetric dielectric gratings
From October 2005.
Principle investigators: ap, [hidden].
This project is seeking to explore the effects of two-dimensional (2D) chirality on the light-matter interaction for optical nanomaterials composed entirely of lossless dielectric materials. These...
Integrated flow-cytometer on chip for in situ particle counting and sampling
From 2008.
Principle investigators: Prof. Hywel Morgan, Dr Matt Mowlem, db4, rz08r.
As the oceans play a crucial role in the future of our civilization (natural resource, climate regulation…), it is important to build very accurate model to predict their evolution. One important...
Label-free impedance spectroscopy and AC electrokinetics
Principle investigators: dm06r, Prof. Hywel Morgan.
Particles can show a wide range of movement patterns according to the characteristic of the AC electric field applied: because of their induced dipole they can shift to high (or low) field regions,...
Low Cost Si Nanowire Biosensors by Recrystallization Technologies
Principle investigator: Professor Peter Ashburn.
Laboratory tests are a vital part of the accurate diagnosis of a patient’s condition, with around 1 billion tests performed in the UK each year. To enable the routine application of predictive,...
Low temperature hot-wire silicon waveguides
Principle investigator: Harold M. H. Chong.
The project concerns the fabrication of low optical loss polysilicon waveguides deposited using Hot-Wire Chemical Vapour Deposition (HWCVD) at a temperature of 240C. A polysilicon film of 220 nm...
Mechanical amplification in inertial sensors
From November 2007.
Principle investigators: izk07r, mk1, Prof. Harold M H Chong.
In this project the application of mechanical amplification in MEMS is investigated. In particular the scheme is applied in capacitive accelerometers to improve their performance in terms of...
Micromachined Actuators
Principle investigator: agre.
Micromachined actuators have a range of applications, e.g. for the integration of an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) on a single chip, novel lithography techniques, micro-switches, etc. The project...
Micromachined Inertial Sensors
Principle investigators: mk1, Prof. William Redman-White.
Novel concepts and approaches for micromachined inertial sensors such are accelerometers and gyroscopes are investigated. A micromachined disk will be levitated by electrostatic forces which can...
Micromachining and testing of electrostatic actuators for optical tuning
Principle investigators: ps2, mk1.
Atom chips are microfabricated surfaces capable of splitting, guiding and manipulating atoms by application of electric and magnetic fields. Although some basic functionalities were demonstrated...
Nano Rresonant Cavity Technology Devices For Nano Sensing
Principle investigator: Prof. Harold M H Chong.
Current integrated nano-systems are inflexible due to bulky interfaces, with discrete circuit blocks thus robbing the system of portability. In this research, I propose a nano-device that could be...
Nanoplasmonics at low temperatures
Principle investigators: ap, [hidden], hm2, Dr Yoshishige Tsuchiya.
Previous work on the optical properties of surface-plasmon-polaritons (SPP) has shown them to be promising candidates for the creation of optical and quantum computers, as well as useful components...
Optical MEMS - Atom Chips
Principle investigator: mk1.
The project is concerned with the investigation of using micromachining techniques to design and realise Atom Chips. Clouds of atoms are levitated by magnetic fields above a silicon surface and...
PhotoSENS
The PHOTOSENS project aims to develop a low-cost, mass-manufacturable, nano-structured, large-area multi-parameter sensor array using Photonic Crystal (PC) and enhanced Surface Enhanced Raman...
Relating the chemical and physical properties of nanoparticles to their cellular toxicity
From 2009.
Principle investigators: Dr Maurits de Planque, Ms Hend Alkhammash.
This ongoing project aims to develop a series of complimentary methods to systematically study the interaction of nanoparticles with synthetic cell membranes, in order to gain an understanding of the...
Semiconductor Nanowire Photonic Integrated Circuits
Principle investigators: Ehsan Jaberansari, Dr. Harold Chong.
semiconductor nanowires offer numerous opportunities for next generation subwavelength optical information processors. As the one dimensional building block element a collection of them can assume...
Semiconductor Nanowire Photonic Integrated Circuits
Principle investigators: Ehsan Jaberansari, Dr. Harold Chong.
semiconductor nanowires offer numerous opportunities for next generation subwavelength optical information processors. As the one dimensional building block element a collection of them can assume...
Semiconductor Nanowire Photonic Integrated Circuits
Principle investigators: Ehsan Jaberansari, Prof. Harold M H Chong, Prof. Darren Bagnall.
semiconductor nanowires offer numerous opportunities for next generation subwavelength optical information processors. As the one dimensional building block element a collection of them can assume...
Semiconductor Nanowires for Photonic Integrated Circuit Applications
Principle investigators: Ehsan Jaberansary, Harold M H Chong.
This project is to investigate an efficient modelling, fabrication and characterisation technique to realise a multifunctional integrated nanosystems for nanoelectronic and nanophotonic applications....
SiGe quantum well infrared photodetectors
From October 2001.
Principle investigator: [hidden].
As the range and scope of thermal imaging and sensing applications expand quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) are emerging as a new and important technology. The best known and most widely...
Suspended Gate Silicon Nanodots Memory
Principle investigators: magr07r, hm2, Dr Yoshishige Tsuchiya.
As one of promising candidates for a scalable non-volatile memory, we proposed a new suspended-gate silicon nanodot memory (SGSNM) by co-integrating nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) and...
Thin Film Thermo-Electric Generators
From 2014 to 2020.
Principle investigators: Prof. CH Kees de Groot, Gill Reid (Chemistry), Andrew Hector (Chemistry), Ruomeng Huang.
Thermoelectric micro-generators are solid state energy harvesters. They have no mechanical parts that can wear out, require little maintenance, have long lifetimes and produce no emissions. In order...
Two Degree of Freedom Capacitive MEMS Velocity Sensor
From 2009.
Principle investigators: mk1, Professor Paolo Gardonio - ISVR.
This research is about the analysis, design and implementation of a new two degree-of-freedom (DoF) capacitive micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) velocity sensor. A first prototype MEMS velocity...