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.
Targeting the cure for Tuberculosis: Solid-state nanopore sensing
Despite being curable and preventable, Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the Top 10 causes of death worldwide and the leading cause of death from a
From waste to hydrogen
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
Shining new light on old rocks
On the micro and nano scale, rocks familiar to us are not so cold and hard as we know them – they are continually twisting
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
Documenting the lifespan of electrons, from birth till death
Gallium nitride (GaN) based semiconductors, perhaps the most important semiconducting materials family since silicon, has revolutionized the electronics industry. These can emit a bright blue
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
Cages for the Future – A caravan for molecules is on its way
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
Warning, may contain nuts!
Stone age, bronze age, steel age, silicon age… What next? I think this century will be the age of nanomaterials. Reducing the size of electronics
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
A computer on a needle point
Following the ancient Chinese who fabricated magnetic needles to explore the world, we are placing magnets at the end of fine needles in a search
What can escape from a glass tube sealed with a sheet of atoms?
I have developed a faster and more reliable way of measuring how molecules cross graphene membranes. As the thinnest possible membrane I’m interested in how
Shaping nanoscale pores with DNA origami
DNA makes a wonderful material for creating structures at the nanoscale. It can be folded and shaped into three dimensions mimicking the traditional Japanese art
Shining a light on the fading mind
Our intricate brains contain innumerable mysteries that continue to perplex. A particularly pressing issue is that of neurodegenerative disease which often leads to dementia or
Investigating synthetic analogues of haem
Porphyrins are found in almost every life form on earth and we’ve been studying them for over 100 years, yet we still can’t tell you
Nano-Mechanical Quantum Computers
For the past 60 years, the performance of computers has doubled every 18 months – your smartphone today has 100,000 times more computing power than
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