The most common method of secondary oil recovery is waterflooding, whereby water is injected into a reservoir to displace the oil in the reservoir towards production wells. Under ideal conditions, the injected water (flood water) uniformly 'sweeps' the oil towards the wells. However, in fractured reservoirs, which contain around half of the world's oil reserves, the flood water preferentially flows through the network of fractures, leaving behind a large fraction of the original oil in the rock matrix. Then, more gradually, flood water in the fractures enters the rock matrix by buoyancy, diffusion, and spontaneous (capillary-driven) imbibition, displacing the oil that was left behind. Salient features of imbibition under uniformly water-wetting (hydrophilic) conditions are well established. However, many fundamental questions remain unanswered for imbibition under mixed-wet conditions characteristic of oil reservoirs, under which grain surfaces display heterogeneity in wettability at the pore scale and sub-pore scale. To design efficient oil recovery schemes for fractured reservoirs, the relationship between rock wettability and the imbibition behaviour (i.e., rate and ultimate oil recovery) must be determined quantitatively. Funds are requested for two members of the project team to travel to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, USA in a series of four trips to perform experiments at their X-ray/neutron imaging facility. We will dynamically image the displacement of oil within limestone samples by imbibing water for oils containing different wettability-altering constituents. Observed differences in imbibition behaviour will be correlated to the contact angle of the oil/brine interface on a calcite substrate measured independently; this macroscopic contact angle will be our measure of rock wettability. The work will be undertaken by a multidisciplinary team comprising academic researchers with a combined expertise in experimental fluid mechanics, rock mechanics, and medical imaging at University of Aberdeen, together with physicists in the Neutron Physics Group at NIST. To our knowledge, NIST is the only high flux user facility with simultaneous X-ray and neutron imaging capabilities. Moreover, NIST will provide us with four highly specialized, constant pressure mode syringe pumps which we need for establishing uniform initial oil saturation. Two key aims of the project are to consolidate the collaboration between the applicants and the named physicists at NIST and to evaluate the achievable specifications of the new combined X-ray/neutron imaging capability at NIST for our samples. This project will thus provide the basis for future work by the project team which will lead to a physically meaningful, predictive model for capillary-driven, two-phase flow in porous media under the full range of possible wettability and initial fluid distribution. Applications include petroleum engineering (oil recovery from fractured reservoirs), geological CO2 storage (migration of formation brine towards the injection well during well shut-in), geotechnical engineering (subsurface leakage from waste repositories), construction (water infiltration into concrete), and flood management, soil remediation, and irrigation (water infiltration in soil).

Many different analytical techniques are commonly applied in the scientific analysis of heritage objects in order to elucidate their material properties. Each technique has advantages and disadvantages in terms of the type of information returned, complexity and expense, sample preparation requirements and applicability to different types of material objects. While X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is very useful in providing elemental information, and techniques such as Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy can yield phase information, only X-ray diffraction (XRD) allows the definitive and unambiguous identification of crystallographic phases. Despite this, the use of XRD in archaeometry has been relatively sporadic and of utility only in niche areas, largely because of sample preparation requirements. This project aims to bring exciting advances in non-destructive XRD techniques to the archaeometric analysis of cultural heritage and archaeological artefacts. The innovative XRD methods developed by the applicants enable high resolution XRD analysis of objects with no sample preparation requirement at all. While twenty years ago sampling of artefacts was considered standard practice, the growth of non-destructive techniques such as handheld XRF have made curators at museums and other collections very much less willing to allow invasive procedures. Maintaining the physical integrity of heritage artefacts is now considered to be of paramount importance. There are certain classes of heritage objects for which destructive sampling is currently the only realistic approach to determining provenance. Stone artefacts are a primary example. Many stone objects in Western Museums are from the art market and doubts have been expressed about the authenticity of many. The most effective method of provenancing stone artefacts is the detailed characterisation of the mineralogical composition in order to identify the geological source, but destructive sampling is nearly always currently required for this purpose. A second major application area is the identification of pigments in fine art paintings and on painted objects such as mummy portraits and Indian miniatures. Although Raman spectroscopy can successfully identify a significant proportion of pigments, there remain an important number for which the method is ineffective. Pigments have unique diffraction pattern fingerprints and XRD studies can provide the critical information for essentially all pigments. The study of stone artefacts and of paintings and painted artefacts will form a major focus of the proposed project. Currently, this innovative XRD technique requires synchrotron facilities for implementation. The applicants will demonstrate the method using cutting-edge high-resolution X-ray detectors (superconducting transition-edge sensor arrays) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US in proof-of-principle experiments. This work will support the eventual transition of the technique away from synchrotrons and into the laboratory and museum. An additional aim is to investigate the archaeometric capability of a prototype handheld XRD instrument, based on the same underlying technique but having much lower resolution. Previous work with this prototype device strongly suggests that the analysis of metallic heritage objects is an especially promising area. The avoidance of the need to extract samples from high-value and rare objects is a highly-significant advantage and is applicable in other research areas. These include palaeontology and the study of meteorites and planetary materials brought to Earth by sample-return missions.

One of the ultimate goals in nanotechnology is the ability to produce devices based on individual molecules and nanostructures. Molecular electronics, devices that are based on single-molecules, could overcome technological limitations of current silicon-based electronic devices, and fulfill complementary technological roles. Despite the many potential benefits envisioned for molecular-scale electronics, the strategies employed to date for device implementation suffer from various limitations, resulting in devices with poor performance, low yield and limited versatility. Principal among these limitations are the time and cost involved in fabrication, the poor control over the molecular assembly, and the lack of suitable technologies for the establishment of electrical contact between molecules and electrodes. Thus many challenges remain. The primary goal of this project is to develop a universal approach for the production of high-throughput solution processable single-molecule nanodevices, for optoelectronic and renewable energy applications. We will achieve this applying novel methods to interface individual molecules to carbon nano-electrodes in solution, and subsequently controlling the organization of the so formed molecular junctions on surfaces for device implementation. Different classes of molecular materials both organic and inorganic, which display promising attributes, will be investigated in device configurations. By approaching the limits of information processing, the strategy we propose has the potential to create a new generation of single-molecule multifunctional systems, and drastically reduce costs associated with device and circuit fabrication. Future technologies will require devices of this type in a variety of key areas, including ultra-high speed computation, bioelectronics, and for renewable energy applications.

Despite dramatic advances in x-ray crystallography and electron microscopy, we do not have a way to visualise functional proteins in motion. This fellowship will lead the required breakthroughs and develop the first optical instrument to visualise proteins in real-time and at the level of single molecules. We propose to develop an instrument to probe single proteins in a specific and sensitive manner, while disturbing them as little as possible. The vision is to create a 'molecular scanner' that can characterise an arbitrary protein and its dynamics, a technology that is beyond the current state-of-the-art. Realising this sensor will lead to a new fundamental understanding of how the machinery of life functions. The micro-optical sensor will allow us to analyse proteins in entirely new ways. We will be able to detect proteins specifically, from optically-induced vibrational motions, on portable coin-sized laboratories. The advances I envisage will result in a completely new approach for the analysis and diagnosis of protein-misfolding diseases (proteinopathies) such as prion diseases, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyloidosis, and a wide range of other disorders. Our sensor platform will be able to contribute to the development of artificial molecular machinery by providing laboratory test beds that observe the motions of nano-machines in real time. We will realise this instrument with optoplasmonic sensors. Optoplasmonic sensors enhance detection signals by reflection-driven circulation of the light. They concentrate the light at the nanoscale where they probe single proteins. We aim to scan the nanoscale light field across a single protein to provide information on the protein structure and its dynamics, resolving protein motions and vibrations at a temporal scale of nanoseconds and at a spatial scale of single bonds and atoms. The optical technique developed in this fellowship will instigate entirely new domains in protein analysis. It will measure and visualise protein structure and its dynamics in-situ, in solution and at surfaces. It will accomplish one of the "holy-grails" of proteomics. Also, this technique can be integrated on a chip, allowing the identification of misfolded proteins from a trace amount of sample, with minimal sample preparation. Thereby it will create new analysis methods, biomarkers and standards for the pharmaceutical and chemical analysis industries. A multitude of industries will be benefitted by the advances of this fellowship, including analytical sensing instrumentation, a $48.4 billion international market. The medical community desperately needs this analysis tool to rapidly detect and characterise intrinsically disordered proteins which cause the debilitating proteinopathies such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease affecting more than 47 million worldwide, at an annual healthcare cost of ~$604 billion (WHO 2017).

Summary The proposal is primarily a theoretical project aimed at resolving several of the most important outstanding problems associated with a promising type of cryogenic detector, the superconducting Transition Edge Sensor (TES), which offers unique capabilities far exceeding that of traditional semiconductor technology. Over the past decade TES-based detectors have found application in diverse areas from dark matter searches, X-ray astrophysics, time-resolved X-ray absorption spectroscopy, quantum information processing, biological sensors, industrial material analysis and homeland security. Practical instruments require a complex optimization of speed, linearity, energy resolution and array size. However, lack of understanding of the superconducting transition in TESs limits our ability to optimise performance and predict the behaviour of a new detector designs. The present models of TESs have played an important role during a period of extensive development of technology. However, based on empirical observations the models lack knowledge of the fundamental details of superconductivity, which determine the transition, and ultimately the performance of TESs. They cannot explain the observable energy resolution, and such fundamental properties as recently-discovered weak superconductivity of TESs. As a result, the current development path of TES detector for a certain applications is still very time consuming and costly, being in many aspects based on trial and error. Significant advances are expected if better understanding of the fundamental physics of TESs is achieved, because this would underpin accurate and streamlined design processes, leading to shorter periods of experiments with targeted design options. The project aims to develop new a theoretical model of the resistive transition in TESs based on fundamental superconductivity theory. The objectives are: 1. Understanding the mechanisms of the resistive transition in TESs as spatially inhomogeneous superconducting systems, simulating electrical and thermal fluctuations, which determine the energy resolution of TES micro- and nano- calorimeters and noise performance of bolometers 2. Developing a model of non-local energy transport in multilayered TES structures, including energy escape and fluctuations over the extremely short time scale of energy deposition and down-conversion. 3. stimulating the development of the next generation of high-performance TESs by evaluating the potential of graphene and few-layer boron nitride for engineering the coupling to a thermal bath and shaping the resistive transition An expected outcome of this project is a new approach to complex optimization of speed, linearity, energy resolution and array size for individual applications. A few examples illustrate the potential impact. An improvement of the energy resolution of TES-based soft X-ray detectors below 2 eV will allow the Athena X-ray mission proposal to ESA to study turbulence in the hot gas of clusters of galaxies, and will also allow the mapping of chemical shifts in X-ray fluorescence signals in Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), thus opening exciting possibilities for Industrial Materials Analysis. An increase in the number of pixels per array would lead to efficient imaging on a future X-ray telescope, and also provides the ability to sustain higher flux levels in emerging synchrotron applications, such as time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy. With several potential markets for high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy equipment, most notably synchrotron facilities and manufacturers of TEM equipment, the emergence of new companies is a likely consequence. For gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy, larger arrays of TES detectors with higher energy resolution imply more efficient and faster screening, facilitating assessment tasks in such fields as non-destructive assay of spent nuclear fuel, and the operational detection of nuclear materials.