My research concentrates on developing technology to offer compact, reliable, robust laser products to be employed by industrial end-users on their own sites to characterise complex 3D objects, helping to bridge the gap between industry and academic research. There are two main areas of research that are of interest, surface analysis and time-resolved tomographic mapping of the internal structures. Lasers can offer an industrial solution to both of these problems. In partnership with the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult and Johnson Matthey plc I will conduct research at the CLF and undertake knowledge transfer placements with them to define what issues they face and design specific laser-based solutions around the problems that I find with a view to translation of the technology into industrial environments.

Energy is one of the primary challenges of the 21st century, and is driven by a need to decarbonise the energy sector and increase energy security and supply. These issues are well documented and do not require reiterating, except to highlight that success is paramount for continued economic and societal growth. Batteries have an important role to play here in the areas of portable electronics, electrified vehicles and grid storage. To date, lithium-ion has revolutionised energy storage, but UK lithium reserves are limited and globally the majority is located in only four countries, placing future UK industry subject to external market and geopolitical forces. Technology diversification is essential and batteries based on abundant sodium (Na ~ 2.6 % vs. Li ~ 0.005 % in the Earth's crust) must be developed. The sodium-ion battery has the potential to meet performance and cost targets in emerging battery markets. The battery benefits from the use of widely available and abundant sodium and unlike the lithium-ion battery, does not rely on cobalt for its electrode materials, making it a sustainable alternative to lithium-ion. This project will accelerate delivery of this technology, which will provide UK PLC with an alternative high performance battery technology. A number of key challenges limit development of this battery and these include identification of stable high performance battery electrodes and electrolytes. Significant progress has been made in this space and numerous advanced materials have been reported, but development of the negative electrode lags behind the other components. The main reason for this is that current electrolytes used in these batteries react with the negative electrode. The goal of this research programme will be to understand how changing this electrolyte affects the fundamental chemistry at the negative electrode in the battery and to build on this to identify new battery components able to provide a high performance and long life sodium-ion battery. This programme will be supported by close interaction with leading industrial stakeholders in the field to ensure technology relevant outputs and to provide a route to commercialisation.

Current highly sensitive gravimeters, such as superconducting spheres, atom interferometers, and torsion pendulums, suffer from high manufacture and maintenance cost (up to £400k), bulky size (as large as 2.5m^3) and slow measurement speed (typically 1 hour). Here we propose an exciting innovation in quantifying gravity, based on the frequency measurement of the gravity-induced precession in an optically levitated fast-spinning particle. This novel levitated optomechanical systems (LOMS) gravimeter can be fabricated on a silicon wafer with wafer-level vacuum encapsulation, making its footprint as small as one mm^2. The small size device is mass-producible with a fabrication cost potentially less than £4k. The proposed research uses the analogy of the precession of the Earth, a slow and continuous change in the orientation of the Earth's rotational axis induced by the gravity of the sun, to develop the novel gravimeter. In December 2018, our research for the first time revealed that the precessional motion also appears in sophisticatedly designed LOMS and that optical scattering techniques can precisely measure the frequency of precession [U9]. Our calculation predicts that levitated rotating particles of 10um diameter can achieve the sensitivity of 10^-9 g/sqrt(Hz) and a very fast-spinning particle (GHz reported in 2018 [x19]) can achieve 10^-11 g/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity, respectively. The novel gravimeter can also measure the acceleration due to the Einstein equivalence principle. Thanks to the ultra-high Quality-factor (7.7x10^11 demonstrated in 2017 [x3]) of the rotating particles, the novel sensor will have the potential to cover 11 orders of magnitude of acceleration measurement. Moreover, using the advanced silicon fabrication technique, we will be able to differentiate the centre-of-mass and the centre-of-optical-force of the levitated particle, in order to optimise the range of the gravity (or acceleration) induced torque, and correspondingly design the sensing range and sensitivity of the acceleration, e.g. 10^-6 m/s^2 to 10^5 m/s^2 to cover the seismic and mining health monitoring applications or 1 m/s^2 to 10^11 m/s^2 for fundamental physics research. The sensor only requires short integration times (1ns to 100s, depend on the precession frequency). Thus, it can complete the measurement very rapidly. This novel precession sensing principle can also be utilised to measure force, strain, charge and mass, with similar ultra-wide dynamic range and ultra-high sensitivity potentially. The innovative gravimeter (accelerometer) can be a powerful tool for investigating fundamental physics questions in gravitation, which are pressing and very hard to access experimentally due to the weakness of the gravitational interaction if compared to other interactions. The proposed research can also provide a platform for quantum manipulation of mesoscopic mechanical devices in the nano-scale regime and can serve as a testbed for theoretical predictions. Furthermore, our novel sensor can equipt the oil and gas industry with its applications in CO2-EOR and exploration. It can track temporal and spatial variations of the gravitational field and provide highly accurate information of mass redistribution below the surface. The prototype on-chip LOMS gravimeter has a small footprint so that it can be installed close to the drilling bit. Based on Newton's law of universal gravitation, the gravimeter has the potential to detect 1.5x10^7 kg mass redistribution above the ground, and 1.5x10^5 kg mass redistribution inside the wellbore. The sensitivity of the novel gravimeters installed inside wellbores can be four orders of magnitude better than that of the existing highly sensitive gravimeters. Our research also contributes to CSS, mineral exploration, structural safety monitoring for mining, earthquake warning, inertial navigation and geoscience, and can lead to significant cost savings in multiple industries.

Industrial symbiosis is a fundamental building block of the circular economy, for it provides a means to generate industrial competitiveness and sustainability through the creation of manufacturing ecosystems involving networks of organisations that generate new economic value through the continuous exchange of resources (materials and energy). Manufacturing firms are embracing the opportunities of circular economy approaches as a means to save costs, prevent disruptions in materials input and generate additional revenue from waste streams. Despite the increase in circular economy practices within key manufacturing sectors (food, automotive, electronics, plastics, etc.), the industrial symbiosis capability of the UK manufacturing industry as a whole is still underexploited, with most of the circular economy initiatives being developed in sectoral silos. This fragmented condition holds the economy back from achieving better circular economy performance overall. To unlock the untapped circular economy potential of the manufacturing industry in the UK, a cross-sectoral industrial symbiosis approach is timely and necessary. To address this gap we propose the creation of the UK Manufacturing Symbiosis NetworkPlus (UKMSN+), which will promote, support, facilitate and stimulate the creation of a UK-wide community of academics and practitioners who will address the challenges above mentioned with basis on the central question of 'how the industrial symbiosis capability of the UK manufacturing industry as a whole can be galvanised within sectors and fertilised across sectors?' The UKMSN+ will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to exploiting enabling mechanisms and tools to facilitate and support the development of industrial symbiosis synergies in the UK manufacturing industry, this way improving the overall circular economy competence and competitiveness of manufacturing businesses across key sectors of the economy. The development of manufacturing symbiosis 'capabilities' aimed at enabling industrial transformations toward the circular economy calls for scientific advancements and innovations in three domains: Business models, Digital systems, and Materials. These three domains represent key enablers of the circular economy, as they respectively refer to production, technological and resource capabilities that have direct impact on the modus operandi of manufacturing organisations. Structural elements such as the quality of logistics and transport systems, collaborative business relationships, policy and regulations are also critical factors to enable circular economy capabilities. The underlying manufacturing symbiosis topic of the network provides a clear and well-defined field of manufacturing research for the network to focus its activities in a cohesive way. The activities of the network will establish the basis for the development of further research that can promote significant scientific and practical advancements on manufacturing symbiosis capabilities that enable deeper, rather than peripheral, industrial transformations toward the circular economy. Our view is that the manufacturing industry in the UK has a significant, but latent, potential to accelerate the shift to the circular economy. The network will strengthen the manufacturing industry contribution to circular economy research, praxis, strategy and policy making by establishing a common field and a unique world-leading forum to amalgamate multi-disciplinary knowledge on production models, digital technologies and materials science purposefully aimed at the circular economy.

Forming components from light alloys (aluminium, titanium and magnesium) is extremely important to sustainable transport because they can save over 40% weight, compared to steel, and are far cheaper and more recyclable than composites. This has led to rapid market growth, where light alloys are set to dominate the automotive sector. Remaining globally competitive in light metals technologies is also critical to the UK's, aerospace and defence industries, which are major exporters. For example, Jaguar Land Rover already produces fully aluminium car bodies and titanium is extensively used in aerospace products by Airbus and Rolls Royce. 85% of the market in light alloys is in wrought products, formed by pressing, or forging, to make components. Traditional manufacturing creates a conflict between increasing a material's properties, (to increase performance), and manufacturability; i.e. the stronger a material is, the more difficult and costly it is to form into a part. This is because the development of new materials by suppliers occurs largely independently of manufacturers, and ever more alloy compositions are developed to achieve higher performance, which creates problems with scrap separation preventing closed loop recycling. Thus, often manufacturability restricts performance. For example, in car bodies only medium strength aluminium grades are currently used because it is no good having a very strong alloy that can't be made into the required shape. In cases when high strength levels are needed, such as in aerospace, specialised forming processes are used which add huge cost. To solve this conundrum, LightForm will develop the science and modelling capability needed for a new holistic approach, whereby performance AND manufacturability can both be increased, through developing a step change in our ability to intelligently and precisely engineer the properties of a material during the forming of advanced components. This will be achieved by understanding how the manufacturing process itself can be used to manipulate the material structure at the microscopic scale, so we can start with a soft, formable, material and simultaneously improve and tailor its properties while we shape it into the final product. For example, alloys are already designed to 'bake harden' after being formed when the paint on a car is cured in an oven. However, we want to push this idea much further, both in terms of performance and property prediction. For example, we already have evidence we can double the strength of aluminium alloys currently used in car bodies by new synergistic hybrid deformation and heat treatment processing methods. To do this, we need to better understand how materials act as dynamic systems and design them to feed back to different forming conditions. We also aim to exploit exciting developments in powerful new techniques that will allow us to see how materials behave in industrial processes in real time, using facilities like the Diamond x-ray synchrotron, and modern modelling methods. By capturing these effects in physical models, and integrating them into engineering codes, we will be able to embed microstructure engineering in new flexible forming technologies, that don't use fixed tooling, and enable accurate prediction of properties at the design stage - thus accelerating time to market and the customisation of products. Our approach also offers the possibility to tailor a wide range of properties with one alloy - allowing us to make products that can be more easily closed-loop recycled. We will also use embedded microstructure engineering to extend the formability of high-performance aerospace materials to increase precision and decrease energy requirements in forming, reducing the current high cost to industry.