Surfaces – Take a sheet of A4 paper. Fold it in half. Now fold it in half again. One more time please. Look at the sheet that you have got now. Is it smaller? Yes, the external dimensions are now one eighth of the original sheet size (they are now A7). Does it have the […]
Devices for printing 3 dimensional objects, called 3D printers, have received a lot of public and scientific attention in the past few decades. They are now being used across multiple industries, such as manufacturing, medicine, architecture, art and science. After drawing the desired object in computer programs, such as toys, models, or even artificial limbs, […]
In-situ metrology techniques are crucial in order to characterise how two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, can be grown by chemical vapour deposition. Such techniques will lead to greater understanding and control of the resulting material properties, critical for potential applications. Imagine you are asked bake a cake for the first time – except, you aren’t […]
What’s the smallest thing you can see? Depending your eyesight; you might see something a tenth of a millimetre across – about the width of a human hair. A microscope lets you see a hundred times smaller, but what about something even smaller? That’s where the good vibrations come in. Spectroscopy looks at light interacting […]
Did you know that 150 million tons of plastic products are thrown away every year? This represents not only a severe environmental hazard but also a waste of valuable resources. Turning rubbish into hydrogen could be a solution. You may have heard hydrogen (H2) endorsed as a green energy source. However, 96% of all H2 is […]
Solar cells are traditionally made from high purity semiconductor materials, such as silicon. Their production requires high temperatures and ultra-clean environments, which makes them expensive. The resulting structure of the material is extremely ordered and rigid. A novel class of solar cell materials has recently been discovered. These materials are called hybrid perovskites. They have the same efficiency for converting light into electricity as the traditional semiconductors, but do not rely on the same expensive production process. This favourable combination has attracted many scientists to this material over the past decade.