Dr Alan Dalton
Senior Lecturer
Email: a.dalton@surrey.ac.uk
Phone: Work: 01483 68 6787
Room no: 11 BB 03
Further information
Biography
Alan received his B.A. in Materials Science from Trinity College Dublin (T.C.D.) in 1996. His PhD work entitled: Morphological Influences on the Excited State Dynamics of Conjugated Polymers was completed in 2000 under the supervision of Prof. Werner Blau at T.C.D. Proceeding this; Alan spent worked at the Dublin Institute of Technology as an Arnold Graves Fellow. In the beginning of 2002, he spent a short period as a visiting scientist at Honeywell Technologies in the nanostructures group before joining the Nanotech Institute at University of Texas at Dallas. Alan joined the department in the summer of 2004.
Link to personal webpage.
Research Interests
Research interests primarily focus on the electrical and optical properties of pseudo one-dimensional conjugated systems including carbon nanotubes and electro active conjugated polymers, the structure property relationships in nano-structured organic composites (mechanical, electrical and thermal), the directed and self-assembly of Nanostructures into functional macrostructures and more recently interfacing biological materials with synthetic inorganic and organic materials. Alan has expertise in a range of steady state and transient spectroscopes, Raman spectroscopy and electron microscopy.
Further details can be found on my personal webpage.
Publications
Highlights
- . (2010) 'Enhanced Thermal Actuation in Thin Polymer Films Through Particle Nano-Squeezing by Carbon Nanotube Belts'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 22 (46), pp. 5310-5314.
- . (2008) 'Stabilized Nanoporous Metals by Dealloying Ternary Alloy Precursors'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 20 (24), pp. 4883-+.
- . (2007) 'Processing - Nanotechnology meets bubbleology'. NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY, 2 (6), pp. 339-340.
- .
(2007) 'Effect of electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups on peptide/single-walled carbon nanotube interactions'. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 129 (47), pp. 14724-14732.doi: 10.1021/ja0750827
- . (2006) 'Waterborne, nanocomposite pressure-sensitive adhesives with high tack energy, optical transparency, and electrical conductivity'. Advanced Materials, 18 (20), pp. 2730-2734.
Journal articles
- .
(2011) 'Locking carbon nanotubes in confined lattice geometries--a route to low percolation in conducting composites.'. J Phys Chem B, United States: 115 (20), pp. 6395-6400.doi: 10.1021/jp111998p
- .
(2011) 'Aligned, isotropic and patterned carbon nanotube substrates that control the growth and alignment of Chinese hamster ovary cells.'. Nanotechnology, England: 22 (20)Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7606/
Abstract
Here we culture Chinese hamster ovary cells on isotropic, aligned and patterned substrates based on multiwall carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes provide the substrate with nanoscale topography. The cells adhere to and grow on all substrates, and on the aligned substrate, the cells align strongly with the axis of the bundles of the multiwall nanotubes. This control over cell alignment is required for tissue engineering; almost all tissues consist of oriented cells. The aligned substrates are made using straightforward physical chemistry techniques from forests of multiwall nanotubes; no lithography is required to make inexpensive large-scale substrates with highly aligned nanoscale grooves. Interestingly, although the cells strongly align with the nanoscale grooves, only a few also elongate along this axis: alignment of the cells does not require a pronounced change in morphology of the cell. We also pattern the nanotube bundles over length scales comparable to the cell size and show that the cells follow this pattern.
- . (2010) 'Enhanced Thermal Actuation in Thin Polymer Films Through Particle Nano-Squeezing by Carbon Nanotube Belts'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 22 (46), pp. 5310-5314.
- . (2010) 'Colloid-Assisted Self-Assembly of Robust, Three-Dimensional Networks of Carbon Nanotubes over Large Areas'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH MACROMOLECULAR RAPID COMMUNICATIONS, 31 (7), pp. 609-615.
- .
(2009) 'Carbon-Nanotube-Based Materials for Protein Crystallization'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES, 1 (6), pp. 1203-1210.doi: 10.1021/am9000858
- . (2009) 'Electrochemically Tuned Properties for Electrolyte-Free Carbon Nanotube Sheets'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS, 19 (14), pp. 2266-2272.
- .
(2008) 'Importance of Molecular Friction in a Soft Polymer-Nanotube Nanocomposite'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC MACROMOLECULES, 41 (20), pp. 7656-7661.doi: 10.1021/ma800868zFull text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7102/
- .
(2008) 'Spontaneous exfoliation of single-walled carbon nanotubes dispersed using a designed amphiphilic peptide'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC BIOMACROMOLECULES, 9 (2), pp. 598-602.doi: 10.1021/bm701181j
- .
(2008) 'Ranking the affinity of aromatic residues for carbon nanotubes by using designed surfactant peptides'. JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD JOURNAL OF PEPTIDE SCIENCE, 14 (2), pp. 139-151.doi: 10.1002/psc.978
- . (2008) 'A molecular mechanism for toughening and strengthening waterborne nanocomposites'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 20 (1), pp. 90-+.
- . (2008) 'Stabilized Nanoporous Metals by Dealloying Ternary Alloy Precursors'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 20 (24), pp. 4883-+.
- . (2007) 'Multifunctional nanocomposites of soft polymer colloids and carbon nanotubes'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 234
- .
(2007) 'Direct x-ray detection with conjugated polymer devices'. AMER INST PHYSICS APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, 91 (3) Article number ARTN 033509 doi: 10.1063/1.2748337Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/297/
- . (2007) 'Processing - Nanotechnology meets bubbleology'. NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY, 2 (6), pp. 339-340.
- . (2007) 'COLL 306-Waterborne nanocomposite pressure-sensitive adhesives: Achieving enhanced adhesion combined with electrical conductivity'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 233
- . (2007) 'Waterborne nanocomposite pressure-sensitive adhesives: Achieving enhanced adhesion combined with electrical conductivity'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 233
- .
(2007) 'Effect of electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups on peptide/single-walled carbon nanotube interactions'. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 129 (47), pp. 14724-14732.doi: 10.1021/ja0750827
- .
(2007) 'Amphiphilic helical peptide enhances the uptake of single-walled carbon nanotubes by living cells'. Experimental Biology and Medicine, 232 (9), pp. 1236-1244.doi: 10.3181/0612-RM-284
- . (2007) 'Arbitrarily shaped fiber assemblies from spun carbon nanotube gel fibers'. Advanced Functional Materials, 17 (15), pp. 2918-2924.
- . (2006) 'Polyazomethine/carbon nanotube composites'. Materials Science and Engineering C, 26 (5-7), pp. 1198-1201.
- . (2006) 'Waterborne, nanocomposite pressure-sensitive adhesives with high tack energy, optical transparency, and electrical conductivity'. Advanced Materials, 18 (20), pp. 2730-2734.
- .
(2006) 'The fine dispersion of functionalized carbon nanotubes in acrylic latex coatings'. Progress in Organic Coatings, 57 (2), pp. 91-97.Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7518/
Abstract
Nanocomposites of a polymer and carbon nanotubes exhibit high electrical and thermal conductivity and enhanced mechanical properties in comparison to the polymer alone. Film formation from latex dispersions is an ideal way to create nanocomposite coatings with the advantages of solvent-free processing and a high uniformity of dispersion. It is shown here that carbon nanotubes functionalised with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) can be blended with two types of acrylic latex to create stable colloidal dispersions without the need for added surfactant or emulsifier. Waterborne nanocomposite films with optical transparency can be formed. Microscopic analysis shows that the PVA-functionalized nanotubes are finely and uniformly dispersed in the polymer matrix. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Conference papers
- . (2005) 'Ultrafast exciton dynamics in isolated single-walled nanotubes'. ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA SYNTHETIC METALS, Bangalore, INDIA: 6th International Topical Conference on Optical Probes of Conjugated Polymers and Biosystems 155 (2), pp. 254-257.

