Students will complete 1 Mini project of 8 weeks duration and one Midi project of 10 weeks duration during the first six months. The mini project are designed to help expand the research horizons of students, before they embark on their PhD topic. The Midi project is normally expected to continue on into a PhD.
Mini Project
The Mini project is 8 weeks in length (Oct – Dec) and run alongside other modules that students take during that time. This project gives students an exposure to day-to-day research environments, and also helps them explore new research areas that they have not worked in previously.
Midi Project
The Midi project is 10 weeks long (Jan – Mar) and helps students test the ground with their PhD topic, supervisor, and research group before committing to doing their PhD in that area. Most students tend to continue on from their Midi to PhD in the same group.
PhD Project Topics
Before joining the programme, and during the first term, students are introduced to potential PhD supervisors from around the University to help identify and explore a PhD project that fits their interests and NanoDTC research themes as well as other requirements. The NanoDTC facilitates this by organising informal chats with supervisors as well as soliciting potential PhD proposals from supervisors (students are able to provide their interest areas to supervisors so that they can be taken into account when designing proposals).
The choice of PhD projects will be made in early January. The PhD proposals are all vetted by the NanoDTC External Advisory Board for ambition, risk, and fit to NanoDTC themes before students choose one project in which they are most interested.
Brief descriptions of the PhD projects undertaken by our students are included below.
Fighting cancer with pink diamonds
Nanodiamonds’ are being used to watch cells die. This could help us to understand how and when chemotherapy is effective in killing cells, and therefore
Building a nanoworld in a pale blue dot
On the nanoscale there is another world that we barely glimpse. How can we build things in it? In everyday life we can handle objects
Seeing the forest for the trees
Nature builds extremely durable structures from the weakest compounds. The key element is a responsive material with a complex nanoscale structure – a potential design
Nanomaterial engineering in ‘designer’ ionic solvents
Nanomaterials are extensively used for a wide range of applications encompassing medicine, diagnostics, defense, energy and many more. A large number of reports are published
Create a world that is flat
Is this world flat? For us, it’s certainly not! For some materials, however, the world is flat. The discovery of graphene made human beings, the
Inspiring the next generation of scientists
Demelza Wright and Taylor Uekert, both cohort 2016 students, have featured in the Inspirational Scientist Video series put together by Cambridge University Press Education. This
Novel spin states discovered in silicon-based artificial atoms
Electronic states with high amounts of spin are central to the understanding of novel physical phenomena such as energy collection in organic photovoltaics and unconventional
Porous nanomaterials: Fuel storage of the future
Can nanomaterials make gas powered cars a reality? Increased energy usage and pollutant emissions over the last century have already caused devastating climate change including
Between Light and Matter
The global demand for energy is increasing with every year. If we do not want to rely on burning limited fossil fuels that emit greenhouse
Bringing Magnetism and Electricity Together
Electricity and magnetism have always been closely linked in science. The coupling of electrical and magnetic properties of certain materials is what’s known as the
Structured Metal Atom Networks
Controlling the assembly of individual molecules has always been an important goal of nanotechnology. In this work, metal ions are held within molecular scaffolds designed
Radically different organic energy materials
Missing your partner can lead to all sorts of weird behaviours. It seems that this is true also for subatomic particles, and my research centres
Arrangements of metal atoms in nanoparticle catalysts
Nanoparticle catalysis is used in every day, such as in catalytic converters, or large-scale industrial processes which for instance aim to connect carbon atoms together.
Tangled spaghetti-like molecules lead to new electronics
The electronic devices that we use nowadays are made of silicon- one of the most abundant elements on the Earth, yet very difficult and expensive
Opening a Window to Sunlight
The price of producing electricity from sunlight has been falling dramatically over the past three decades, but a push towards more efficient devices is still
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