Humans have long sought to create organised shapes and patterns, sometimes for specific purposes and sometimes just in search of something beautiful. Imagine the beginnings of the perfect garden, how could we guide its growth to fit our plans? We would need to seed plants in regimented rows, build trellising to direct chaotic plants and […]
Cucurbiturils (queue-cuh-bit-your-ills) are tiny barrel shaped molecules, so small that 100,000 of them could sit side by side and the total length would still be smaller than the width of a single human hair. These tiny barrels have a special property, the inside of them is attracted to oily molecules while the outside of them […]
My research involves developing an algorithm to automatically tune a 2xN array of quantum dots (QDs) that could be used as the building block for a fault tolerant quantum computer. Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionise our daily lives, just like the transistor has changed the last 70 years or so, with classical computers. […]
We all know what it’s like to have your phone or laptop run out of power too quickly. And we would all be keen to see improved batteries, that can keep going longer and recharge faster! It’s not just our devices that would benefit from better batteries. Electric vehicles are a more renewable and eco-friendly […]
One of the biggest consumers of energy (up to 25% in the UK) is heating and cooling buildings. Instead, what if we could cover walls in surfaces that use only energy from the sun to directly heat and cool the building? This requires clever design of the surface as it needs to switch between heating […]
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 on developing ways of harnessing these quirks for efficient solar cells and light sources. The structure of every chemical around us is determined by the way their tiny electrons are […]
We need cars to transport, containers to store things and clothes to protect us from sunburn. Molecules also need ‘something’ to help them move, ‘some place’ to stay and ‘somewhere to keep them safe. Unfortunately, molecules are too small to be seen by naked eye, so most people do not know how they live. Have […]
When we think of machines, what comes into mind are often heat engines, electric motors and gears. These machines make use of complex rigid mechanical structures with movable parts to generate motions. Living things in nature, however, are made of soft materials and move in ways that are vastly different. For example, animals have muscles […]
The modern era involves an inherent drive towards perpetual technological advancements. Throughout history, many of the greatest leaps forward in technology have been made possible only through a better understanding of the fundamental behaviour of the world around us. In order to broaden the horizons of emergent technologies and unlock the path to new frontiers […]
Our brain has a lot to say and not only when we think, speak and move. 86 billion or so neurons contained within a 1.4 kg organ are in a constant state of firing, sending inputs, receiving outputs and integrating information from all over our bodies, to shape how we view and interact with the […]