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.
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
Is your sample running a fever?
Using stiffness measurements as a biological indicator The first thing most people do if they are feeling unwell is to take their temperature. From a
Green chemical synthesis using vitamins and light
Many chemical synthesis techniques used in industry to create pharmaceuticals and consumer goods are extremely energy intensive and produce large amounts of toxic by-products. What
Solar Energy: Two for Blue
Next generation solar cells by splitting packets of blue light in two Solar energy is one of the fastest growing renewable energy sources in the
Warning signals for disease from a DNA lightbulb
For our bodies to repair and maintain themselves we must continually produce new proteins, the building blocks of life. However, protein synthesis sometimes goes wrong
Preventing human insulin sticking together
How Supramolecular Chemistry can control aggregation The formation of clump-like ordered structures in proteins has been associated with several diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and
Watching molecules grow helps find origin of Alzheimer’s
One in three people in the UK know a family member or friend with dementia and the number of people suffering from this life shattering
Revealing the superconducting potential of graphene
Angelo di Bernardo (c2012) is the lead author on a recent study published in Nature Communications† where a special type of superconductivity was observed in
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
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
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
From waste to fuel: quantifying sustainability
Taylor Uekert (c2016) and co-authors highlight key steps for taking a solar waste-to-hydrogen technology from the lab to the real world. With 70% of global
A flexible shuttle to fight intracellular infections
A little prick and a shuttle loaded with antimicrobials is injected into the patient’s blood circulation. The antimicrobial delivery vehicle targets infected cells, inactivates microorganisms
Smart surfaces for heating and cooling buildings using only sunlight
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
Safety alert – beware of battery explosions
We all want batteries that allow us to listen to music for hours on our phone or an electric car that will drive miles after
- All
- c2016
- c2017
- c2018
- c2019
Making quantum fly – with microwaves
What if you could see magnetism?
Watching what happens inside working batteries
Making a sustainable future more colourful
From waste to fuel: quantifying sustainability
A new spin on electronics
Catching sunbeams
Capturing the Energy of Individual Electrons
Nanorobots – not who you think they are
Targeting the cure for Tuberculosis: Solid-state nanopore sensing
Seeing is believing
The future is bright for generating new light
Nano-structuring of battery electrode
Solar cells through the Looking Glass of electrons
Jelly solar cells
The coolest infrared sensor in the Universe
Brain navigation: connecting the eyes to the brain
From waste to hydrogen
Treating cancer using surfaces, light and gold
The Adventures of Ellie the Electron
Navigating hyper-dimentional voltage space
Shining light on green hydrogen
3D printing going nano
Batteries to power a sustainable future
The studies of battery degradation under the microscope
Flipping spins to boost the efficiency of LEDs
A new way for brain cancer treatment
Functional Nanoelectronics and Quantum Materials
Stacking a market stall with fruit with hands 10,000 times the size!
Quantum computers with industry-standard silicon technology
Spectroscopy and Electrocatalysis for a Sustainable Future
Materials for motion
Controlling the uncontrollable
Cages for the Future – A caravan for molecules is on its way
Low power memory devices
Using light to make chemistry more environmentally friendly
Life from scratch
Trapping light to open up our universe
Radically different organic energy materials
Lipids: The Missing Key to the Parkinson’s Puzzle?
Smart surfaces for heating and cooling buildings using only sunlight
Photoswitches with ultra-fast response times
