You are here:

Dr Alan Dalton

Senior Lecturer

Email:
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

  • Worajittiphon P, Jurewicz I, King AAK, Keddie JL, Dalton AB. (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.
    doi: 10.1002/adma.201003145
  • Snyder J, Asanithi P, Dalton AB, Erlebacher J. (2008) 'Stabilized Nanoporous Metals by Dealloying Ternary Alloy Precursors'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 20 (24), pp. 4883-+.
    doi: 10.1002/adma.200702760
  • Dalton A, Jurewicz I. (2007) 'Processing - Nanotechnology meets bubbleology'. NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY, 2 (6), pp. 339-340.
    doi: 10.1038/nnano.2007.158
  • Poenitzsch VZ, Winters DC, Dieckmann GR, Musselman IH, Xie H, Dieckmann GR, Musselman IH, Dalton AB. (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
  • Wang T, Lei C-H, Dalton AB, Keddie JL, Creton C, Lin Y, Fernando KAS, Sun Y-P, Manea M, Asua JM. (2006) 'Waterborne, nanocomposite pressure-sensitive adhesives with high tack energy, optical transparency, and electrical conductivity'. Advanced Materials, 18 (20), pp. 2730-2734.
    doi: 10.1002/adma.200601335

Journal articles

  • Jurewicz I, Worajittiphon P, King AA, Sellin PJ, Keddie JL, Dalton AB. (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
  • Abdullah CA, Asanithi P, Brunner EW, Jurewicz I, Bo C, Azad CL, Ovalle-Robles R, Fang S, Lima MD, Lepro X, Collins S, Baughman RH, Sear RP, Dalton AB. (2011) 'Aligned, isotropic and patterned carbon nanotube substrates that control the growth and alignment of Chinese hamster ovary cells.'. Nanotechnology, England: 22 (20)
    doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/22/20/205102
    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.

  • Worajittiphon P, Jurewicz I, King AAK, Keddie JL, Dalton AB. (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.
    doi: 10.1002/adma.201003145
  • Jurewicz I, King AAK, Worajittiphon P, Asanithi P, Brunner EW, Sear RP, Hosea TJC, Keddie JL, Dalton AB. (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.
    doi: 10.1002/marc.200900799
  • Asanithi P, Saridakis E, Govada L, Jurewicz I, Brunner EW, Ponnusamy R, Cleaver JAS, Dalton AB, Chayen NE, Sear RP. (2009) 'Carbon-Nanotube-Based Materials for Protein Crystallization'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES, 1 (6), pp. 1203-1210.
    doi: 10.1021/am9000858
  • Zakhidov AA, Suh D-S, Kuznetsov AA, Barisci JN, Munoz E, Dalton AB, Collins S, Ebron VH, Zhang M, Ferraris JP, Zakhidov AA, Baughman RH. (2009) 'Electrochemically Tuned Properties for Electrolyte-Free Carbon Nanotube Sheets'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS, 19 (14), pp. 2266-2272.
    doi: 10.1002/adfm.200900253
  • Wang T, Dalton AB, Keddie JL. (2008) 'Importance of Molecular Friction in a Soft Polymer-Nanotube Nanocomposite'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC MACROMOLECULES, 41 (20), pp. 7656-7661.
    doi: 10.1021/ma800868z
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7102/
  • Nicolosi V, Cathcart H, Dalton AR, Aherne D, Dieckmann GR, Coleman JN. (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
  • Xie H, Becraft EJ, Baughman RH, Dalton AB, Dieckmann GR. (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
  • Wang T, Lei C-H, Liu D, Manea M, Asua JM, Creton C, Dalton AB, Keddie JL. (2008) 'A molecular mechanism for toughening and strengthening waterborne nanocomposites'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 20 (1), pp. 90-+.
    doi: 10.1002/adma.200700821
  • Snyder J, Asanithi P, Dalton AB, Erlebacher J. (2008) 'Stabilized Nanoporous Metals by Dealloying Ternary Alloy Precursors'. WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH ADVANCED MATERIALS, 20 (24), pp. 4883-+.
    doi: 10.1002/adma.200702760
  • Keddie JL, Wang T, Jurewicz I, Dalton AB, Creton C, Manea M, Asua JM. (2007) 'Multifunctional nanocomposites of soft polymer colloids and carbon nanotubes'. AMER CHEMICAL SOC ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 234
  • Boroumand FA, Zhu M, Dalton AB, Keddie JL, Sellin PJ, Gutierrez JJ. (2007) 'Direct x-ray detection with conjugated polymer devices'. AMER INST PHYSICS APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, 91 (3) Article number ARTN 033509
    doi: 10.1063/1.2748337
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/297/
  • Dalton A, Jurewicz I. (2007) 'Processing - Nanotechnology meets bubbleology'. NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY, 2 (6), pp. 339-340.
    doi: 10.1038/nnano.2007.158
  • Wang T, Lei C-H, Dalton AB, Manea M, Asua JM, Keddie JL. (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
  • Wang T, Lei C-H, Dalton AB, Manea M, Asua JM, Keddie JL. (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
  • Poenitzsch VZ, Winters DC, Dieckmann GR, Musselman IH, Xie H, Dieckmann GR, Musselman IH, Dalton AB. (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
  • Chin S-F, Baughman RH, Dieckmann GR, Draper RK, Musselman IH, Poenitzsch VZ, Xie H, Pantano P, Baughman RH, Dieckmann GR, Draper RK, Musselman IH, Pantano P, Dalton AB, Dieckmann GR, Draper RK, Pantano P, Draper RK, Mikoryak C, Pantano P. (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
  • Razal JM, Muñoz E, Lund B, Collins S, Dalton AB, Baughman RH, Coleman JN, Muñoz E, Gogotsi Y, Ye H, Dalton AB. (2007) 'Arbitrarily shaped fiber assemblies from spun carbon nanotube gel fibers'. Advanced Functional Materials, 17 (15), pp. 2918-2924.
    doi: 10.1002/adfm.200700210
  • Lafuente E, Muñoz E, Benito AM, Maser WK, Martínez MT, Piñol M, Oriol L, Serrano JL, Dalton AB. (2006) 'Polyazomethine/carbon nanotube composites'. Materials Science and Engineering C, 26 (5-7), pp. 1198-1201.
    doi: 10.1016/j.msec.2005.09.094
  • Wang T, Lei C-H, Dalton AB, Keddie JL, Creton C, Lin Y, Fernando KAS, Sun Y-P, Manea M, Asua JM. (2006) 'Waterborne, nanocomposite pressure-sensitive adhesives with high tack energy, optical transparency, and electrical conductivity'. Advanced Materials, 18 (20), pp. 2730-2734.
    doi: 10.1002/adma.200601335
  • Vandervorst P, Lei C-H, Dalton AB, Keddie JL, Dupont O, Lin Y, Sun Y-P. (2006) 'The fine dispersion of functionalized carbon nanotubes in acrylic latex coatings'. Progress in Organic Coatings, 57 (2), pp. 91-97.
    doi: 10.1016/j.porgcoat.2006.07.005
    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

  • Sheng CX, Vardeny ZV, Dalton AB, Baughman RH. (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.
    doi: 10.1016/j.synthmet.2005.09.036