Surrey professor joins Nanotechnology and Materials team at NPL
Tuesday 15 September 2009
The strategic partnership between the University of Surrey and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has been further strengthened by the part-time secondment of Professor Jeremy Allam, of the Advanced Technology Institute and Physics Department at the University of Surrey.
NPL is a world-leading centre for metrology, the science and technology of measurement, and for more than a century has developed and maintained the UK’s primary measurement standards. The current rapid development of nanostructured materials (materials patterned on a length scale of a few nanometers or billionths of a meter) offers new challenges for metrology, as well as opportunities to exploit phenomena which are encountered only at the nanoscale. During this one-year secondment, Professor Allam will work with members of NPL’s Materials team to develop activities in nanoscale science and materials and to identify opportunities for collaborative research.
Professor Ravi Silva, Director of the Advanced Technology Institute at Surrey commented: “The combination of our expertise in the fabrication and science of nanomaterials with NPL’s advanced metrology will lead to new opportunities in the exploitation of nanostructured materials. We already have a successful collaboration with NPL based on the application of nanofabrication to quantum metrology, and we are delighted to further strengthen our links with NPL through this secondment.”
Professor Allam joined the University of Surrey in 2000, having previously worked for Hitachi Europe, AT&T Bell Laboratories and the University of Surrey in collaboration with British Telecom Research Labs. His research interests include semiconductor nanostructures and optoelectronic devices, avalanche breakdown at high electric fields, ultrafast dynamics in semiconductors and electro-photonic properties of carbon nanostructures. He serves on the EPSRC Peer Review College and on the Steering Committee of the EPSRC National Centre on III-V Semiconductor Technologies.
The partnership in research and training between NPL and Surrey was formalised in a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2006. This led to the 2008 launch of a strategic partnership with a series of joint workshops in satellites, communications and signal processing, nano-engineering and metrology, and applied radiation. More recently, Surrey and NPL were awarded £3.85m by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council in the form of a Knowledge Transfer Account, which will support increased engagement with industrial users and accelerate the exploitation of new technology. Starting in October 2009, the partners will develop innovative platforms in communications and signal processing, next generation materials and characterisation, and nanotechnology and photonics.
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