The UK has a clear roadmap to establish itself as a global leader in fusion power technology, a field anticipated to play a pivotal role in clean energy generation over the next 50 to 100 years. A major milestone in this journey is achieving a net positive energy output in the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) fusion plant by the year 2040. The key to accomplishing this ambitious goal lies in effectively containing the plasma generated in the fusion reaction, a feat only possible if the materials used in the core components of the plant can withstand the extreme combination of irradiation, thermal, magnetic, electric, and mechanical stresses anticipated in these facilities. Remarkably, no single material system alone can withstand these conditions. Currently, the prevailing designs for components near the reactor core relies on tungsten, a material renowned for its excellent thermal conductivity and resistance to radiation damage. These tungsten components are kept cool by being connected to copper heat sinks. However, these existing designs face limitations in performance due to conventional manufacturing methods. These methods restrict the complexity of shapes that can be created, and the use of various joining techniques (such as brazing, fasteners, welding, or adhesion) introduces elements like bolts, holes, or interlocking mechanisms. These features can potentially undermine the overall structural performance of the component. Our proposal suggests a drastically different approach to manufacture. We believe that such parts should be manufactured using a bottom-up process that enables the deliberate design of structural and property variations in a component. That is, a manufacturing process that allows to translate into physical parts the outcome of concurrent design activities that simultaneously maximise the thermal extraction behaviour of copper heat sinks and the radiation-resistance design offered by tungsten barriers. To achieve this vision, we require the capability to precisely arrange tungsten and copper in three dimensions with deterministic control, guided by computational methods. Unfortunately, this capability is currently significantly limited, with state-of-the-art at prototype levels. Therefore, the core objective of our research is to explore the potential of multi-metallic additive manufacturing, a capability recently developed in the UK, to establish new guidelines for design and fabricate multi-metallic advanced structures. A significant research challenge lies in establishing rules for mixing and evolving the metal-metal joint (interface) that forms during the deposition of tungsten and copper. We also aim to develop new interface material models and integrate them into design activities that extend to the component level (macro scale). We anticipate a spectrum of complexities in these interfaces, which will vary depending on factors such as build arrangement, thermal history, and deposition sequence. Determining these models will require the support of first-of-a-kind characterisation experiments, including microscopy and thermo-mechanical testing, alongside computational metallurgy. Once we have established this foundational research, our goal is to deliver structures tailored for fusion power applications. We will design and rigorously test these structural prototypes in collaboration with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), one of our project partners.

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Perovskite solar cells are one of the newest and most exciting materials in the world of solar cell research. In little over 10 years their lab scale efficiencies have advanced from 8% to over 25%, putting them on a par with market leading silicon solar cells. However, after a decade's worth of interest and investment, this potentially revolutionary solar cell has not made it on to the market yet. There are several important barriers to commercialisation for perovskites, principally: 1. Issues with stability of perovskite materials, 2. Concerns around the use of toxic element such as lead, and, 3. Issues in transitioning to scalable manufacturing processes. In order to overcome these barriers, we propose a more holistic approach to design and fabrication of perovskite solar cells, which considers both toxicity and scalability, as well electrical efficiency during the optimisation process. The aim of this project to develop safe, stable and printable perovskite solar inks. This will be achieved by developing tin-based perovskite solar cells and exploring the use of ionic liquids in the solvent system to create a stable non-toxic ink that can be used in an inkjet printer. Ionic liquids are an impressive new solvent option for perovskite processing, exhibiting many favourable properties, such as solubility, low toxicity and stability. Most promising of all is the tunability of their viscosity, a key parameter in ink formulation for printing and thin film processing, which is yet to be explored. The goal is to fully print a tin-based perovskite solar cell in atmospheric conditions. This will be a revolutionary solar cell product that contains no harmful materials, is more easily recyclable and can be fabricated at lower costs.

As one of Europe's largest multidisciplinary research organisations, STFC has world-class research facilities and capabilities. It is responsible for funding much of the research in UK universities in the fields of astronomy and other space sciences, particle physics, and nuclear physics, and in this context it provides the main UK interface to leading international organisations such as CERN, ESA, ESO, ESS, FAIR, NASA, etc. STFC also operates its own world-class, large-scale research facilities in the UK such as the Central Laser Facility, ISIS pulsed neutron and muon source, Diamond Light Source, the Microelectronics Support Centre, the Hartree Centre for Computational Science and Engineering, and the Boulby underground laboratories. Through its support of science, STFC has had a significant impact on the UK academic community, which has seeded strong connections to UK business, especially in the areas near Daresbury Laboratory in the Northwest and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the South East. The innovation hubs of Harwell Oxford and Sci-Tech Daresbury are well known to local high-tech business, and the co-location of world-class scientific facilities and business incubator space has resulted in the generation of important links to the community. STFC is in the process of further improving commercial access especially for SMEs via the Bridging for Innovators (B4I) programme, which will provide a single point of access and support from STFC scientists in addressing commercial challenges. While the capabilities within STFC are well known in academic circles across the UK, there is a significant knowledge gap for businesses outside of the immediate area of STFC's facilities. The Midlands region for example is home to much of the UK's strength in the manufacturing, transport and service sectors, yet the companies in the region have yet to exploit the internationally leading scientific expertise to be found in the areas STFC supports. The aim of this proposal is to develop a pilot Regional Centre that can bridge the knowledge gap and help local business find solutions to high-tech challenges, innovate manufacturing techniques and find new partnering opportunities and markets to thereby improve productivity, build R&D capacity and accelerate growth in the region. The effort builds on the B4I programme within STFC, which provides the route to access advanced analytical technologies, supporting expertise and capabilities within STFC. The University of Birmingham (UoB) together with the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) are planning to create a hub for communicating and connecting the opportunities of B4I and the capabilities of the STFC science base to Midlands business.

This network grant aims at bringing together researchers working in different areas of Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) to enhance communication between groups, provide a focus for collaboration and innovation, and to maximise the future impact of DfAM-based research in the UK. Additive Manufacturing (AM), also referred to as 3D Printing, has the potential to transform many UK industries thanks to its unique capabilities, such as the ability to produce extremely complex shapes, personalise products, reshore production, consolidate components, reduce weight through material minimisation and eliminate tooling and stock holding. Design Research plays a significant role in transforming these capabilities into societal and economic impact. In fact, is through Design that AM capabilities can be exploited for the development of innovative and high-value products. Our industrial, product and engineering design research communities are fundamental in developing the knowledge that will enable UK designers and manufacturers to deliver more cost-effective and high-value products through AM. This requires co-ordination to enable a regular, free and open dialogue between academic disciplines (including design, engineering, computer scientists, mathematicians, etc.), AM technology developers and suppliers, the professional design community and the industrial user-base. DfAM is relevant to a broad range of engineering and science disciplines of the UKRI funding portfolio, including Digital Economy (e.g. Design, Personalisation), Energy (e.g. Energy Storage), Engineering (e.g. Simulation Driven Design), Computer Sciences (e.g. CAD software), Healthcare Technologies (e.g. Biomaterials and Tissues), and Manufacturing the Future (e.g. Materials Engineering, Manufacturing Technologies, Biomaterials). This has meant that DfAM has evolved tangentially and in a fragmented manner. Although research groups across a wide range of disciplines benefit heavily from DfAM-based research, they tend not to consider their work, design-related. Whilst there is a notable success in aerospace and medical applications groups largely focus on their own discipline and there is a general lack of communication and co-ordination between knowledge domains in both industry and academia. Such fragmentation leads to a duplication of effort, a lack of awareness of the progress made in related areas, limited knowledge exchange between different sectors, inefficiencies in the growth of research capacity and crucially in the most effective use of facilities and equipment. Moreover, as it is often seen as an enabling discipline, DfAM has never been part of an initiative to co-ordinate such research activities. In the UK the profile of DfAM continues to be limited to academia, and the discipline does not successfully present itself with a unified voice to UKRI, government agencies or the wider population. Accordingly, as the relevance of DfAM continues to grow, it is crucial that the discipline develops a more co-ordinated and unified approach to initiate adventurous multidisciplinary research projects, meet future technological and societal challenges while providing support and reaching out to other disciplines. This proposal aims to address this gap by forming a UK DfAM Network with diverse membership and industry support. It will co-ordinate the UK's DfAM research, facilitate the identification of common interests, foster knowledge transfer and accelerate the impact of DfAM research in the UK. The DfAM Network will draw together researchers through meetings, workshops, seminars, visits to facilities and laboratories, and a well-co-ordinated web presence.