Group Overview
Our fundamental research impacts on a variety of modern technologies. Transitions to turbulent flows are encountered in many production processes, as is granular particle segregation, e.g. in the pharmaceutical industry. Liquid crystal related investigations improve the design of devices for extremely fast switching electro-optic modulators, while most recently the technology is being applied to a variety of sensors.
Our work is truly multidisciplinary, at the forefront of some of the key areas of physics today and is internationally recognised through our high profile publications and invitations to lecture at conferences around the world. The cross-disciplinary research activities of the group are also reflected by close collaborations both on campus, and with many national and international groups, research centres and industrial partners.
We are an extremely active research group attracting significant funding from a variety of sources. Currently, we have 5 members of staff, 5 RAs and 10 graduate students and occupy new, state of the art laboratories. We regularly use large-scale facilities such as international synchrotron sources and MRI facilities. In-house, we have developed techniques such as particle image velocimetry, which is used to study instabilities in fluid flows in the world’s largest constant mass flux pipe facility housed in our laboratories. The liquid crystal laboratory includes facilities for fabricating specialist devices in addition to extensive equipment for structural studies of liquid crystal systems. We also have a variety of cutting edge optical, electro-optic laser tweezer and optical and Raman spectroscopy systems for general studies of soft matter materials.