Teaching
Smart Materials
Smart materials are a fascinating group of materials that respond to an external stimulus in a significant and exploitable fashion.
Examples of smart materials include:
- Shape memory alloys
- Piezoelectric materials
- Electrostrictive materials
- Magnetostrictive materials
- Photostrictive materials
- Magnetorheological fluids
- Electrorheological fluids
- Ferrofluids
- Biomimetic materials
- Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) - These are not strictly speaking 'Smart Materials',
Electronic and Optoelectronic materials and devices
Functional materials and the devices that utilise these are central to my teaching interests.
Major topics that I cover include:
- Semiconductor physics
- Device fabrication methods
- Materials
- Devices
- Conventional capacitors
- Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) capacitors
- p-n junctions diodes
- MOS Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs)
- Light emitting diodes (LEDs)
- Photo-diodes
- Laser diodes
Design 2 - Group design
In this module, we set year 2 Mechanical Engineering students a design challenge at the start of the year and then get them to work through a 'Total Design' process in small groups. In recent years, we have set students design challenges relating to novel smoothie makers and kick scooters. The students have to consider a wide range of aspects of the design process including:
- Product design specification
- Market research
- Review of existing patents
- Conceptual design
- Concept selection
- Engineering science
- Detailed design
- CAD
- 2D technical drawing generation
- Process selection
- Material selection
Modules for 2024-25
FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
Module code: MATS402
Role: Module Co-ordinator
Manufacturing Systems
Module code: MNFG321
Role: Module Co-ordinator
Manufacturing Systems
Module code: MNFG401
Role: Module Co-ordinator
SMART MATERIALS
Module code: MATS315
Role: Module Co-ordinator
SMART MATERIALS
Module code: MATS515
Role: Module Co-ordinator
Supervised Theses
- Atomic Layer Deposition of Tantalum Doped Aluminium Oxide as a Gate Dielectric for GaN-based Power Transistors
- Atomic layer deposition of conformal silver as an ultra-thin anti-microbial coating for orthopaedic implants
- Band Alignments and Interfaces in Kesterite Photovoltaics
- Mechanistic Insight and Properties of Metal Oxide Thin Films Deposited via Atomic Layer Deposition
- Utilising Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) to Develop Efficient Hematite-based Photoanodes for Photocatalytic Water-Splitting