A wide range of research projects have been supported by our centre over the years. Brief descriptions of projects can be found below.
Please reload the page to see a new selection of research projects.

Computing on a diamond cluster
Quantum computing and communication is a highly exciting technology, capable of changing the current information paradigm. Instead of having to run expensive, time consuming, clinical

A Collaborative Approach in Tackling Dementia
Interdisciplinary science paves the way toward solving many of our most complex problems. And broadening our academic network yields some of the most significant advances

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

Spying and tagging cancer to attack it first!
Although there have been great developments in the field of cancer diagnostics and treatment, cancer has still sustained its position as a leading cause of

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

Look for the light!
Approximately 25% of the global electricity demand is used for lighting, which accounts for 1.9GT of CO2 emissions and 5% of the annual planet carbon

Using Electronic Noise to Speed Up Machine Learning
All computers contain millions of electronic switches known as transistors. Traditionally these transistors switch on and off to perform the operations required to run a

Cell Membrane-on-a-Chip for Drug Interaction Studies
Our microbiome consists of 100 thousand billion microbes that live inside our gut. These are both helpful and potentially harmful, and often have a symbiotic

Converting CO2 into Useful Chemicals
Carbon dioxide is a well-known greenhouse gas industrially produced by the combustion of fossil fuels for the generation of heat and electricity. The accumulation of

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

Using Supercapacitors to Capture Carbon Dioxide
Climate change is the largest problem faced by our planet on a global scale. We need to make sure that there is an increase of

Chloroplasts: a platform for vertical biopharming
For centuries, scientists have turned to nature to serve as inspiration on how to tackle some of the world’s most challenging scientific problems. Plant cells

Making computers more brain-like
Imagine you’re doing your homework in your bedroom, but you don’t have any of your schoolbooks. To get the answer to each question, you have

Sensors for Detecting Cancer Biomarkers
The aim of my PhD project is to develop a sensor capable of detecting cancer biomarkers (biological molecules that may indicate the presence of cancer).

Photobatteries: Harvesting and storing solar energy at the same time!
It’s the year 2050 and you’re awoken by a soft humming near your ear. You slowly open your eyes and see Herbert, your robotic assistant

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

Playing with light
The ability to “play” with light can enable many things such as increasing the efficiency of solar panels, improving biomedical imaging and transferring data faster

Looking inside lithium-ion batteries
Alice Merryweather (c2018) is the lead author on a paper published in the journal Nature, reporting an a new optical technique called interferometric scattering microscopy

Sounds of Sustainability: Building International Relationships
On 27 and 28 May 2021, the NanoDTC hosted a sustainability themed podcast workshop for students for students from Colombian Universities and Cambridge. The workshop

The Adventures of Ellie the Electron
To mark the Cambridge Festival, Taylor Uekert (c2016) brings us The Great Escape of Ellie the Electron, a children’s book exploring photocatalysis on the nanoscale.

Spectroscopy and Electrocatalysis for a Sustainable Future
Demelza Wright (c2016) and co-authors use plasmonic nano-junctions to learn about catalysis. Climate change is a constant, yet multifaceted, threat. One of the issues we

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

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

Batteries to power a sustainable future
Over 800 million people worldwide currently live without access to electricity. For others, unreliable supplies of energy continue to affect quality of life and hinder

Making sense of a sea of atoms
We all end up sitting at a desk at some point in our lives, but not all desks are made equal. A desk might be

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

Lipids: The Missing Key to the Parkinson’s Puzzle?
Lipids, at first glance, seem like simple molecules. They have some degree of insolubility in water and have long hydrocarbon chains. While some types of

Studying membrane transport electrical ‘colour’
Cells are the building blocks of all living things. Contained within the cell membrane is all the machinery and information required to sustain and create

Solar Power on a Roll
One of the most promising renewable energy sources available is solar power. The sun produces enough energy in an hour to satisfy global energy needs

A touch screen for cells: establishing a new method to communicate with biology
Some of the most remarkable material properties occur in biological materials. Bone, for example, is a phenomenal composite material with an outstanding combination of stiffness,
- All
- Current Projects
- Previous Projects

Generating electrical currents from light in graphene

Studying membrane transport electrical ‘colour’

Watching molecules grow helps find origin of Alzheimer’s

Batteries to power a sustainable future

Lighting up a greener future

Understanding the next generation of batteries

Mechanical properties of DNA hydrogels

Functional Nanoelectronics and Quantum Materials

Invisibly Bright Emitters to Make Solar Cells Great Again

Microfluidic bioelectronic interfaces at the cellular level

Bringing Magnetism and Electricity Together

Navigating hyper-dimentional voltage space

Safety alert – beware of battery explosions

Watching what happens inside working batteries

Laser texturing for ‘self-cleaning’

A flexible shuttle to fight intracellular infections

Using Supercapacitors to Capture Carbon Dioxide

Using light to make chemistry more environmentally friendly

Quantum computers with industry-standard silicon technology

Light at the end of the tunnel

Low power memory devices

Compressing Hard Drives

Opening a Window to Sunlight

Shrunk Electronics

Mimicking living systems with DNA

Shining new light on old rocks

Counting photons from atoms and stars

Tiny Barrels Unlock the Materials of Tomorrow

Finding Small Things with Tiny Holes

Bacteria: Enemy or Hero?

Nanomaterial engineering in ‘designer’ ionic solvents

Tiny Cages that deliver medicines

Rubbing materials to power small devices

Squeezing electricity out of new materials

The next great detective story: using nanosensors for early cancer detection

Capturing the Energy of Individual Electrons

Seeing dancing molecules on a surface

Stacking a market stall with fruit with hands 10,000 times the size!

Capturing light with an antenna based on DNA

Fuels from Air

The Fanciest Colander You’ll Never See

Preventing human insulin sticking together

Power for Space Missions

Cages for the Future – A caravan for molecules is on its way

Smaller and smaller: let’s get weird

Shaping nanoscale pores with DNA origami

Nano swiss rolls in batteries

Flipping spins to boost the efficiency of LEDs

What can escape from a glass tube sealed with a sheet of atoms?

Shake it up every once in a while…

Lipids: The Missing Key to the Parkinson’s Puzzle?

Catching sunbeams

Materials chemistry meets stretchable electronics

Converting CO2 into Useful Chemicals

The (Di)electric light orchestra

Return to Nature

Wasted Energy into Electricity

Computing on a diamond cluster

Upgrading Biology: Building Better than Nature

Arrangements of metal atoms in nanoparticle catalysts

Building a nanoworld in a pale blue dot

A new spin on electronics

Karate on electrons to give a bigger zap from light

Zero dimensions – a quantum revolution is under way

From waste to hydrogen

Nanotechnology right under our noses

Shaking things up

Solar cells through the Looking Glass of electrons

The future is bright for generating new light

Solar Panels from Bacteria

Treating cancer using surfaces, light and gold

The Nanotoxicity of Bone

Better Batteries

Radically different organic energy materials

Shining a light on the fading mind

A computer on a needle point

What if you could see magnetism?

Seeing is believing

Warning, may contain nuts!

Green chemical synthesis using vitamins and light

Smart surfaces for heating and cooling buildings using only sunlight

Making sense of a sea of atoms

The power of soft connections: next-generation neural interfaces

Trapping liquids in a sponge

Photoswitches with ultra-fast response times

A Collaborative Approach in Tackling Dementia

Lighter than Feathers but Stronger than Steel

Singlet Fission Luminescent Solar Concentrators

Biasing a nanoparticle

Controlling the uncontrollable

Warning signals for disease from a DNA lightbulb

Life from scratch

Spare body parts for active (or not-so-active) people

Chloroplasts: a platform for vertical biopharming

Nanorobots – not who you think they are

Materials for motion

Between Light and Matter

Understanding our brain’s language

Construction on the nanoscale with DNA stars

Solar Power on a Roll

Making quantum fly – with microwaves

Superconcentration of light and other tricks

Tangled spaghetti-like molecules lead to new electronics

Fishing for biomolecules

Can bacteria save the world

Dementia drug screening in hollow-core fibres

Playing with light

Shining Light on Neurodegeneration

Colour from Nothing

Photobatteries: Harvesting and storing solar energy at the same time!

Fighting cancer with pink diamonds

Routes of Captured Light

Shining light on green hydrogen

A perpetual supercomputer

The studies of battery degradation under the microscope

Kicking the Lithium habit

Spider webs inspire smart, tough materials

Cheaper Energy from the Sun

A new way for brain cancer treatment

Solar Energy: Two for Blue

Cell Membrane-on-a-Chip for Drug Interaction Studies

Trapping light to open up our universe

Quantum cryptography with blue-LED technology

Bionic leaf to power your car

Controlling nature’s patterns

Pipeline from the Sun

Making superconductors more super

Porous nanomaterials: Fuel storage of the future

The coolest infrared sensor in the Universe

Using Electronic Noise to Speed Up Machine Learning

Flexible Electronics

Nano-Mechanical Quantum Computers

Targeting the cure for Tuberculosis: Solid-state nanopore sensing

Materials building themselves in water

Brain navigation: connecting the eyes to the brain

Seeing the forest for the trees

Look for the light!

Better night vision using the darkest material on Earth

Structured Metal Atom Networks

Making computers more brain-like

Documenting the lifespan of electrons, from birth till death

Recycling Carbon Dioxide

Create a world that is flat

Jelly solar cells

Frontier observations using superconductors

Is your sample running a fever?

A lab in the palm of your hand

Optical Metamaterials made by Self-Assembly

Fruit breaking nature’s rules
