QMol will realise a new generation of switchable organic/organometallic compounds, with the potential to fulfil societal needs for flexible energy harvesting materials, low-power neuromorphic computing, smart textiles and self-powered patches for healthcare. The possibility of creating these exciting materials derives from a series of world firsts by the investigators, demonstrating that advantageous room-temperature quantum interference effects can be scaled up from single molecules to self-assembled monolayers, new strategies for controlling molecular conformation and energy levels, and new methods of molecular assembly, which can be deployed in printed scalable architectures. The demand for wearable electronic devices has increased enormously in recent years and integration of these devices into textiles is highly desirable. A key problem is the need for a power supply, typically in the form of a battery or supercapacitor, which need to be recharged. To overcome this problem, QMol will develop flexible thermoelectric materials that can covert waste heat from the body and other sources into electricity. Progress in this direction has been made using disordered, doped polymer composites [eg ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020, 12, 41, 46348], but there is a need to develop higher-performance, inexpensive, easily processable, flexible thermoelectric materials. The best inorganic materials cannot fulfil these requirements and therefore QMol will focus on the development of high-performance, thin-film, organic/organometallic materials. In parallel with these developments, it is widely recognised that dendritic-synaptic interconnections among neurons in the brain embed intricate logic structures enabling decision-making that vastly outperforms any artificial electronic analogues, with extremely low power requirements. Moreover, the network in a brain is dynamically reconfigurable, which provides flexibility and adaptability to changing environments. To build artificial neural networks, which mimic this behaviour, QMol will develop thin-film, organic/organometallic materials, which embed complex logic possibilities in the material properties of a single circuit element and outperform recent realisations of such logic elements. The resultant current-voltage characteristic of these molecular memristors will exhibit history-dependent, non-volatile switching transitions between different conductance levels. As demonstrators of the wide potential of these new materials, by the end of the Programme, we shall deliver (i) smart textiles with in-built thermal management, (ii) cross-plane, memristive devices, which are a fundamental building block of a neuromorphic computer (iii) flexible organic thermoelectric energy generators (TEGs) and self-powered patches for healthcare. We have demonstrated that room-temperature quantum interference effects in monolayer molecular films can be used to enhance memristive switching, energy harvesting and thermal control. Since transport is perpendicular to the plane of such films, long-range order within the films is not required. QMol recognises that although monolayer films are of fundamental scientific interest, they are not technologically useful, because for example, in a device, it is not possible to create a significant thermal gradient across a monolayer in a perpendicular direction. Therefore the new materials envisaged by QMol will be finite-thickness multi-layers, which move the above functionalities into the third dimension. The team comprises nine academics, with track records at the forefront of their fields. They are supported by twenty world leaders from industry and academia, comprising the six-member QMol Advisory Board and fourteen external partners. Eight postdoctoral researchers (PDRAs) will be employed by QMol and will be joined by eight PhD students, an industry-funded CASE student and an industry-funded PDRA.

The goal of this proposal is to develop advanced fabrication processes for Gallium Nitride (GaN) and related materials (AlN and InN), collectively the III-Nitrides, for the 21st Century manufacturing industries. The III-Nitrides are functional materials that underpin the emerging global solid state lighting and power electronics industries. But their properties enable far wider applications: solar energy conversion by photovoltaic effect and water splitting, water purification, sensing by photonic and piezoelectric effects and in non-linear optics. Many applications of these functions of the III-Nitrides are enhanced, even enabled by creating three dimensional (3D) nanostructures. As such, the particular focus of the proposed research is to develop and nanostructuring processes on a manufacturing scale and to unlock the potential of these properties of the III-Nitride semiconductors in a range of innovative materials and devices. The research will address and resolve 1) the need of industry to be able to scale-up laboratory-based results based on individual piece or wafer fragments to batches of wafers of up to 6 inches in diameter, 2) the need to be able to design devices that are robust with the manufacturing tolerances, and 3) the need to rapidly characterise the devices to increase packaging yield. Potential commercial exploitation of the manufacturing processes and innovative materials and devices will be aided and led by the applicants' company partners. The programme of research opens with developing the core capability of wafer-scale (up to 6 inch) nanopatterning by nanoimprint lithography and the newly developed technique of Displacement Talbot Lithography, a potentially disruptive technology for generating nanostructures. These lithographic techniques will then be integrated with additive and subtractive processes to form 3D nanostructures across whole wafers. In a major application, the developed nanofabrication techniques will be used in developing manufacturing processes for the growth by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE) of non-polar and semi-polar GaN templates to address the persistent problem of the quantum confined Stark effect limiting the efficiency of light emitting diodes (LEDs) and GaN based laser diodes. The computer aided design method known as Designing Centering will be developed for process optimisation to maximise the yield of nanostructured devices (initially LEDs). Another activity will be to explore the use of electron beam and optical techniques, which are capable of characterising materials and devices on the deeply sub-micron scale, as production tools for screening materials and part-processed devices. The combination of wafer-scale nanofabrication techniques, advanced MOVPE growth, characterisation methods and Design Centering will then be deployed in the design and manufacture of innovative and emerging devices including core-shell structures for LEDs and photovoltaic applications, and nano-beam sensors that incorporate photonic crystals. Having established the core capability for the III-Nitrides, it will be extended to nanostructuring other semiconductors, notably InP and related materials as used in the manufacture of devices for optical fibre telecommunications.