Experimental equipment at UCL
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Office of Vice Provost Research
Abstract
This is a UCL-wide bid to invest in a range of equipment items to refresh and upgrade our experimental facilities which will help to maintain a cutting-edge in internationally leading research. Each of the bundles included in this proposal contributes to one or more strategic themes, in which UCL, as well as national and international funders, has invested significantly in recent years: Health technologies, Advanced functional materials, Sustainable built environment and Novel information and communication technologies. UCL has considerable strengths in these areas, and we have experienced significant growth in terms of staff and student numbers, and breadth and impact of research activity. This additional investment will therefore provide an ideal platform to ensure the sustained growth of the highest quality research, as well as supporting the early career researchers.
Each bundle identifies a set of items that underpin a range of research activities, often reaching across department and discipline boundaries, which are of strategic importance for UCL and EPSRC. The specific items identified within the bundles have been selected in close collaboration with senior management and individuals and groups working in the area, to ensure that they are aligned with their current needs and have the greatest potential to support maximum impact of their research activities. Each bundle has been allocated a Lead Investigator who will be responsible for regular reporting to the Vice-Provost for Research on progress against objectives.
The four EPSRC challenge themes addressed by this proposal are: Health technologies [bundles 1, 2, 3, 6]; Advanced functional materials [bundles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6]; Sustainable built environments [bundle 7]; and Novel information and communication technologies [bundles 5, 8].
Each bundle identifies a set of items that underpin a range of research activities, often reaching across department and discipline boundaries, which are of strategic importance for UCL and EPSRC. The specific items identified within the bundles have been selected in close collaboration with senior management and individuals and groups working in the area, to ensure that they are aligned with their current needs and have the greatest potential to support maximum impact of their research activities. Each bundle has been allocated a Lead Investigator who will be responsible for regular reporting to the Vice-Provost for Research on progress against objectives.
The four EPSRC challenge themes addressed by this proposal are: Health technologies [bundles 1, 2, 3, 6]; Advanced functional materials [bundles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6]; Sustainable built environments [bundle 7]; and Novel information and communication technologies [bundles 5, 8].
Planned Impact
This proposal aims at acquiring eight bundles of capital equipment items, to upgrade and complement existing experimental resources and facilities within UCL labs, across the Engineering and Physical Sciences Domain. Broadly speaking, we can divide the impact of this proposal into two types: a "direct" impact (on researchers and students, both at UCL and beyond, and on their research) and an "indirect" impact that will be determined by the research enabled by the equipment.
Impact of the first type will be visible on a shorter time-scale, and can be easily measured in terms of improved research capability and performance. In identifying the items requested in this proposal, priority has been given to items supporting areas of high strategic importance for both EPSRC and UCL, in which there is a high level of internationally leading research activity and where UCL hosts a critical mass of researchers at all stages of their career. The benefits will be visible in terms of: training and skills upgrade (PhD students/junior postdocs); supporting the development of independent research careers (senior postdocs/lecturers); and enhanced capability for world-leading, transformative research programmes (established career).
Access to state-of-the-art equipment is also extremely valuable for industry and users, and is often one of the drivers for new collaborations. At UCL we have significant experience in sharing equipment resources with collaborators from both academia and industry, and the bundles included in the proposals will benefit from the presence of all the necessary mechanisms and structures. By upgrading our experimental facilities, therefore, this proposal will enable our research activity to have an impact on UK R&D activity beyond the academic environment.
Impact of the second type will be harder to measure, since it will be both longer term and mediated by the research process itself. Given the timeliness and importance of the challenges we address in the proposal, though, we are confident that there will be a significant benefit to the UK society and economy including (but not limited to) the following:
Developments in health technology [1,2,3,6] have the potential to benefit the UK society and economy (and are in line with the priorities outlined in the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies theme, as well as with the RCUK Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Programme);
Research in advanced functional materials [1,3,4,5,6] has the potential to impact on a variety of sectors, including healthcare (e.g. drug development), energy (e.g. batteries and fuel cells), and ICT (e.g. new devices);
Investigation of novel information and communication technologies [5,8] is crucial to support modern-day society, which relies more and more on high-speed communication and information processing;
Advances in the built environments [7] are crucial in developing a sustainable future, where we are able to balance the requirements of a modern society with the constraints imposed by energy and resource limitations.
Impact of the first type will be visible on a shorter time-scale, and can be easily measured in terms of improved research capability and performance. In identifying the items requested in this proposal, priority has been given to items supporting areas of high strategic importance for both EPSRC and UCL, in which there is a high level of internationally leading research activity and where UCL hosts a critical mass of researchers at all stages of their career. The benefits will be visible in terms of: training and skills upgrade (PhD students/junior postdocs); supporting the development of independent research careers (senior postdocs/lecturers); and enhanced capability for world-leading, transformative research programmes (established career).
Access to state-of-the-art equipment is also extremely valuable for industry and users, and is often one of the drivers for new collaborations. At UCL we have significant experience in sharing equipment resources with collaborators from both academia and industry, and the bundles included in the proposals will benefit from the presence of all the necessary mechanisms and structures. By upgrading our experimental facilities, therefore, this proposal will enable our research activity to have an impact on UK R&D activity beyond the academic environment.
Impact of the second type will be harder to measure, since it will be both longer term and mediated by the research process itself. Given the timeliness and importance of the challenges we address in the proposal, though, we are confident that there will be a significant benefit to the UK society and economy including (but not limited to) the following:
Developments in health technology [1,2,3,6] have the potential to benefit the UK society and economy (and are in line with the priorities outlined in the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies theme, as well as with the RCUK Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Programme);
Research in advanced functional materials [1,3,4,5,6] has the potential to impact on a variety of sectors, including healthcare (e.g. drug development), energy (e.g. batteries and fuel cells), and ICT (e.g. new devices);
Investigation of novel information and communication technologies [5,8] is crucial to support modern-day society, which relies more and more on high-speed communication and information processing;
Advances in the built environments [7] are crucial in developing a sustainable future, where we are able to balance the requirements of a modern society with the constraints imposed by energy and resource limitations.
Organisations
- University College London, United Kingdom (Lead Research Organisation)
- Huawei Technologies (Collaboration)
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- National Institute for Health Research, United Kingdom (Collaboration)
- Indian School of Design and Innovation (Collaboration)
- Quantum Communications Hub (Collaboration)
- Perkin Elmer (Collaboration)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States (Collaboration)
- Scintacor (Collaboration)
- Bruker Corporation, Germany (Collaboration)
- Oclaro (Collaboration)
- IMASENIC Advanced Imaging S.L. (Collaboration)
- Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (Collaboration)
- Rohde & Schwarz UK Limited, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
People |
ORCID iD |
| David Price (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Akpinar B
(2019)
PEGylated surfaces for the study of DNA-protein interactions by atomic force microscopy.
in Nanoscale
Alvarado A
(2016)
Corrections to "Replacing the Soft-Decision FEC Limit Paradigm in the Design of Optical Communication Systems" [no. 20, Oct 15 4338-4352]
in Journal of Lightwave Technology
Alvarado A
(2016)
Replacing the Soft-Decision FEC Limit Paradigm in the Design of Optical Communication Systems *
in Journal of Lightwave Technology
Balakier K
(2017)
Monolithically integrated optical phase lock loop with 1 THz tuneability
Balakier K
(2017)
Foundry fabricated photonic integrated circuit optical phase lock loop.
in Optics express
Balakier K
(2018)
Integrated Semiconductor Laser Optical Phase Lock Loops
in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics
Bordonalli AC
(2015)
Optical injection locking to optical frequency combs for superchannel coherent detection.
in Optics express
Brako F
(2018)
Mucoadhesion of Progesterone-Loaded Drug Delivery Nanofiber Constructs.
in ACS applied materials & interfaces
| Description | BUNDLE 1 Instrument installed and running since early 2016, servicing a wide range of projects including - Battery failure (paper under review)* - Fuel cell materials imaging (paper under review)* - Imaging concrete - Imaging fabrics for defence applications We completed the commissioning phase of our instrument a few months ago and so far we have been able to run three experiments - two of which were successful while one will have to be repeated, probably in the week beginning Mar 6 2017 Of the two successful ones, one is currently being written up as a chapter in a PhD thesis, and data analysis on the latter was completed last week - we expect both to lead to published papers in due time. We have extended our unique, proprietary laboratory based x-ray phase contrast techniques into both higher (with the initial tungsten target) and lower (with the copper target we have installed later) x-ray energies, opening the way to new applications that were previously inaccessible. We now aim to further extend applications at the high-energy end to target areas such as novel battery technology and additive manufacturing, and further develop the low energy methods to target digital histology and other biomedical applications. BUNDLE 2 All of the equipment obtained has been used extensively by PhD students across the CDT in Emergent Macromolecular Therapies and from different collaborating HEIs, as well as by other PhD / EngD students and PDRAs across UCL. The AKTA is used extensively for protein purification prior to formulation research, as well as for analytical chromatography to support fermentation and downstream processing research. The Agilent UPLC provides rapid and small sample analysis of proteins by SEC, IEX and RP-HPLC, and is coupled to the liquid handling and resin screening work in 0.5-1ml columns, undertaken on the Tecan Evo, while also providing standalone analysis of protein aggregates and charge variants in product formulations. The high-resolution fluorometer measures protein fluorescence lifetimes in the ns time range, and is opening new frontiers for the analysis of product quality in microscale bioprocesses, and product formulations for protein stability and heterogeneity. BUNDLE 4 We have used the system to develop a new, multimodal imaging technique (lab-based beam-tracking micro CT, see above Phys. Rev. Appl. paper). The harder spectrum created by the W anode has also enabled us to cast new light on the implications of implementing edge-illumination (EI) based x-ray phase contrast imaging with high-energy. Higher energy means thicker x-ray masks need to be fabricated, and this leads to side effects which we had previously been able to neglect; namely angular cut-off at the sides of the field of view, and total reflection of x-rays from the inner walls of the mask apertures. While the former effect was known to other implementations of phase contrast which use finer mask/gratings pitches (but never observed in EI), to the best of our knowledge the latter has never been observed before in a phase-contrast imaging context. These effects will influence the future design of imaging systems aimed at high x-ray energy applications. Finally, through another grant (EP/P023231/1), we are testing source performance following an anode swap (with Cu, for a softer spectrum) and introduction of a dedicated x-ray focusing optics system, through which we are planing to develop a soft x-ray microscope to investigate soft biological tissue at the cellular level. BUNDLE 6 - Main key finding to day is the "Elucidation of biomolecular dynamics involved in immune response to bacteria and can cancer cells". - That the formation of quadruply folded DNA structures strongly depend on the rest of the DNA molecule in which they are formed. Such DNA quadruplexes are intensively studied in the context of anticancer therapies. - That an attack mechanism of the immune system, operating by punching holes, becomes dysfunctional if only a fraction of its hole-punching proteins ("perforin") is deficient. - the instrumentation has contributed to understanding protein assemblies relevant in health and disease at a molecular level, such as antimicrobial proteins and peptides that punch holes in bacteria, and the nature of the transport gate that determines how, e.g., viruses such as Hepatitis B virus and HIV gain access to the cell nucleus. BUNDLE 8 Included instrumentation providing the ability to make extremely high resolution measurements on optical and microwave signals. This has enabled optical frequency synthesis of terahertz signals, including the first demonstration of optically injection locked quantum cascade lasers, where the frequency is exactly related to a primary frequency standard, such as Caesium. This has fully met the objective of controlling the terahertz spectrum with the same accuracy that is possible at radio frequencies. It has also been possible to show that the phase noise of optical comb synthesised terahertz signals is limited by the multiplied phase noise of the microwave reference used. We have used the equipment to make a proof of principle demonstration of THz spectroscopy with unprecedented resolution and frequency accuracy. We have also used the equipment to characterize the first monolithically integrated dual DFB laser source and UTC device, with up to 100 µW generated at 120 GHz (through an international collaboration with III-V Laboratories, France.) The DAC system along with the multiwavelength sources has enabled a state-of-the art digital transmitter to be set up. This has given us a world-leading capability to undertake optical transmission research. Working in collaboration with Oclaro, who have provided the high-bandwidth modulators, the resulting system has given us a unique capability to generate high bandwidth signals. To date we have carried out experiments with both 64QAM and 256QAM modulation formats inc joint experiment with Xtera which has resulted in a world-record 120Tbit/s capacity transmitted over a single fibre: https://www.xtera.com/2018/03/14/xtera-ucl-smash-transmission-world-record/. Used both as a research tool for the study of limits in capacity over single-mode fibres in a variety of regimes, the test-bed also provides a service to industry for the testing of different subsystems, components and algorithms, both in the UK and internationally. The impact has already been significant - for example, we have been approach to host a researcher from KDDI (Japan) - themselves leaders in high-capacity transmission and also a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with NICT (Japan). The system will be used to underpin the experimental activity in the programme grant proposal TRANSNET, recently approved for funding by EPSRC. |
| Exploitation Route | The equipment has been set up and is now running, as per our original submission. The capabilities thus enable will facilitate the delivery of new research which is likely to be either taken forward by us (or put to use by others), but it is still early to give details. Bundle 1: Some of the research allowed by the new instrument is at the basis of the pre-commercial prototype developed with Nikon X-Tek Systems. The research conducted after the anode was swapped from W to Cu for softer x-rays was at the basis of a successful NIH bid led by Rigaku, on which UCL is a partner (details are being defined as I write). Should this new project be as successful as we hope, Nikon and Rigaku would discuss an agreement for exploitation of our technology in soft x-ray applications. Also EPSRC is currently considering funding a National Research Facility in |
| Sectors | Chemicals,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Electronics,Energy,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology,Security and Diplomacy,Other |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-physics-biomedical-engineering/research/research-groups/advanced-x-ray-imaging-group-axim |
| Description | BUNDLE 1 Although there may be the need to wait a bit longer for commercial exploitation, this grant has provided a significant step forward towards the development of the first pre-commercial prototypes, and re-enforced industry's confidence on the commercial viability of our technique. It also provided ground for some of the public engagement events listed elsewhere in this submission (Made @ UCL and UCL Minds) BUNDLE 2 All of the equipment obtained has been used extensively by PhD students across the CDT in Emergent Macromolecular Therapies and from different collaborating HEIs, as well as by other PhD / EngD students and PDRAs across UCL. The AKTA is used extensively for protein purification prior to formulation research, as well as for analytical chromatography to support fermentation and downstream processing research. The Agilent UPLC provides rapid and small sample analysis of proteins by SEC, IEX and RP-HPLC, and is coupled to the liquid handling and resin screening work in 0.5-1ml columns, undertaken on the Tecan Evo, while also providing standalone analysis of protein aggregates and charge variants in product formulations. The high-resolution fluorometer measures protein fluorescence lifetimes in the ns time range, and is opening new frontiers for the analysis of product quality in microscale bioprocesses, and product formulations for protein stability and heterogeneity. The specific use by EPSRC CDT students has formed either part of either their core PhD research, or has been used within their Pilot Plant week training. BUNDLE 3 Demonstrations of high data rate wireless transmission enabled by the equipment funded by this grant have increased interest in the use of THz frequencies for future wireless systems. The technology is now under active investigation by companies such as Huawei for use in 5G+ communications systems. BUNDLE 6 The award has facilitated the study of antibody drugs as they bind to their targets located on the cell surface, which has given our industrial collaborator MedImmune scientific insights that may facilitate their drug development and approval. I has also helped Bruker to market their instruments This grant is for equipment that has served and is serving a wide community of academic and industrial researchers, with e.g. 40~50 users in a 3-month period. It has widely benefitted scientific endeavours across UCL, Imperial College and King's College, and to industry as per Collaborations & Partnerships. For the imaging equipment - Impact is mostly academic for the time being; the activities are based around developing new imaging techniques, so translation takes time |
| Sector | Chemicals,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Electronics,Healthcare,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic |
| Description | "Micro-radian x-ray scattering: transformative technology for industrial and medical diagnostics", Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technology |
| Amount | £2,780,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal Academy of Engineering |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | BBSRC Standard Grant |
| Amount | £458,449 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/N015487/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2016 |
| End | 10/2019 |
| Description | Dynamics of bacterial killing by the membrane attack complex |
| Amount | £449,429 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | MR/R000328/1 |
| Organisation | Medical Research Council (MRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2018 |
| End | 06/2021 |
| Description | EPSRC Future formulation of complex products |
| Amount | £2,500,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | Enabling rapid liquid and freeze-dried formulation design for the manufacture and delivery of novel biopharmaceuticals |
| Amount | £1,519,555 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/N025105/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2016 |
| End | 06/2021 |
| Description | Enabling rapid liquid and freeze-dried formulation design for the manufacture and delivery of novel biopharmaceuticals |
| Amount | £2,380,872 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/N025105/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2016 |
| End | 06/2021 |
| Description | FUTURE TARGETED HEALTHCARE MANUFACTURING HUB |
| Amount | £10,317,090 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/P006485/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2017 |
| End | 12/2023 |
| Description | Healthcare Impact Partnership |
| Amount | £948,478 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/P023231/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2017 |
| End | 01/2021 |
| Description | Low-complexity transceivers |
| Amount | £219,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Huawei Technologies |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | China |
| Start | 03/2017 |
| End | 02/2018 |
| Description | MERL 4-year donation |
| Amount | $100,000 (USD) |
| Organisation | Mitsubishi Electric |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Japan |
| Start | 03/2016 |
| End | 03/2020 |
| Description | Microsoft studentship |
| Amount | £71,650 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Microsoft Research |
| Department | Microsoft Research Cambridge |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2016 |
| End | 10/2019 |
| Description | Nikon-UCL Prosperity Partnership on Next-Generation X-Ray Imaging |
| Amount | £2,283,598 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/T005408/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2019 |
| End | 11/2024 |
| Description | Programme Grant |
| Amount | £6,517,861 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/P021859/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2017 |
| End | 05/2022 |
| Description | RAEng Early Career Fellowship |
| Amount | £500,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal Academy of Engineering |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2016 |
| End | 11/2021 |
| Description | UK IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship |
| Amount | £188,396 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal Academy of Engineering |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Title | Optical test bed software-defined network optical transmission |
| Description | Software-defined test bed for experimental investigation of long-haul fibre optical transmissions systems. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2015 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Extended test-bed infrastructure used for a number of key experiments and evaluation of of new components/fibres/devices/subsystems. This now includes 16 ECL lasers and an SS-ASE, digital transceiver with 12x92 GSample/s 8-bit digital-to-analogue converters (DAC). This means we can generat signals with a symbol rate up to 64GBd, compared to 10GBd previously. We can also now perform high order modulation formats up to 256QAM. The test bed has been updated for full C-band transmission capability using the following: - Spectrally shaped amplifier spontaneous emission noise (SS-ASE) to emulate the generation of full C-band transmission - 3xHigh power (33 dBm output power) optical amplifiers (EDFAs) to transmit full C-band - A recirculating optical loop with state-of-the-art optical fibres is used for long haul C-band transmissions. Specialist fibres now include Corning® Vascade® EX2000. We also have use of anti-resonant hollow core fibre produced by Southampton University Optical Research Centre. Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories used the test bed for a joint MERL-UNLOC paper on a dual-carrier 1Tb/s signal generation, suitable for current commercial systems. Aston University, as part of the UNLOC programme, have also used this test bed for joint work to analyse nonlinearity. Joint work with Southampton University to characterise the new anti-resonant hollow core fibre. The test bed was used for joint work with Corning on a single span transmission, where we achieved a record spectral efficiencyxdistance product. Joint work underway with Xtera to extend transmission bandwidth beyond C and L band. Numerous resulting publications presented at OFC and ECOC during 2015/16/17. |
| URL | http://unloc.net/index.php/research/facilities |
| Title | Example GMI database |
| Description | The metric generalised mutual information (GMI) can be used to estimate the performance of a soft-decision binary forward error correction algorithm. This research brought the metric to the attention of the optical networks community, and provided an example set of GMI-BER (bit error rate) relations. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The work has already informed the development of coded modulation in optical communications systems, and has been referenced 38 times in the literature to date (March 2017). |
| Title | Reduced subset of probabilistically shaped constellations for finite penalty |
| Description | A methodology and reference example for the design of practical probabilistically shaped modulation formats was developed. It was shown that, for the reference example, that just four constellations could be used to approximate the continuous distribution of shaped constellations for <0.1 dB SNR penalty. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This methodology has been used in a range of subsequent optical communications research investigating probabilistic shaping. |
| Title | Transceiver noise-Gaussian noise model |
| Description | This model enables the accurate prediction of an optical fibre communication system performance when nonlinearity has been compensated in the presence of transceiver (transmitter and/or receiver) noise. This allows both better transmission system design, but also opens an avenue of research into signal-to-noise ratio improved transceivers. |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Within our group, this research has informed transmission experiments, as well as research direction. |
| Description | Bruker |
| Organisation | Bruker Corporation |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | We have provided technical feedback on equipment and produced data and protocols that helped Bruker to promote their equipment. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Bruker has provided a cash contribution of £30,000 to a PhD studentship and provided extensive technical support and guidance (hard to exactly quantify, but I guess that £20,000 monetary value would not be unreasonable) |
| Impact | N/A |
| Start Year | 2009 |
| Description | Freeze drying of vaccines |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Freeze drying optimisation of vaccine formulations |
| Collaborator Contribution | Donation of vaccine materials from Oxford University |
| Impact | This is still in data form at present. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Huawei |
| Organisation | Huawei Technologies |
| Country | China |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Development of next generation low complexity transceivers for future access networks. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Funding agreement and provision of optical and electronic components. This follows a series of previous collaborations with Huawei in digital signal processing and coherent optical communication systems |
| Impact | Agreement signed. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Hyperhighway |
| Organisation | National Institute for Health Research |
| Department | NIHR Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Centre |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have used UNLOC equipment and expertise to characterise antiresonant hollow core fibre |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of antiresonant hollow core fibre for characterisation and exerimentation. |
| Impact | Publications in submission |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | IMASENIC |
| Organisation | IMASENIC Advanced Imaging S.L. |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | We are providing input to new sensor design and making our labs available for testing |
| Collaborator Contribution | They are training us on and providing access to their unique sensor technology |
| Impact | We have won a joint Proof-of-Concept grant (2019 "XCOL: Low-cost, large area x-ray colour image sensors", EU ATTRACT Scheme, € 100,000, co-I (47.5k€ UCL), see below) |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | ISDI |
| Organisation | Indian School of Design and Innovation |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are providing input to new sensor design and making our labs available for testing |
| Collaborator Contribution | They are training us on and providing access to their unique sensor technology, and are co-funding a PhD student in the group |
| Impact | None unless contributing to a CASE PhD studentship counts. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | LCN/Bruker Partnership |
| Organisation | Bruker Corporation |
| Department | Bruker Nano |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The LCN AFM lab has been designated as Bruker's key partner in the development of high-resolution, high-speed AFM imaging for biological applications. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The LCN AFM labs have been equipped to include the latest Bruker AFM technology. Broker is also co-sponsoring a 4-year PhD studentship |
| Impact | This collaboration tackles key challenges at the interface between physical sciences and life sciences |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Los Alamos National Labs |
| Organisation | Los Alamos National Laboratory |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We have provided lectures and practicals on the use of our technology |
| Collaborator Contribution | They have given us access to, and trained on the use of, their unique facilities |
| Impact | No output yet, pilot experiment conducted |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | MERL |
| Organisation | Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Occasionally we provide our research facilities and lab equipment to partners from MERL to conduct a variety of testing. |
| Collaborator Contribution | MERL is a valuable research partner with which we exchange and share ideas particularly in the area of DSP for high-capacity optical receivers. Recently our collaboration was features in an official press release from Mitstubishi, one of 15 highly competitve press news to come out of the company during a press conference in Japan in Feb 2016 ( see http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2016/0215.h tml?cid=rss). MERL also provides a yearly charitable donation of $20 000 to the Optical Networks Group. In March 2016, MERL pledged to donate $25,000 to the UCL Optical Networks Group every year for a 4-year period. This has now started and work is in progress with new outcomes. |
| Impact | publications, press release ( see http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2016/0215.h tml?cid=rss), media coverage, joint experiments |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Oclaro equipment |
| Organisation | Oclaro |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Intellectual expertise to perform experiments using Oclaro modulators as part of UNLOC experimental work |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provision of advanced optical modulators and sources for the UCL Optical Networks Lab and UNLOC experimental programme to guide the development of next generation components and subsystems. Most recent devices provided in December 2016. A new programme of joint experiments is planned in 2017 including the use of semiconductor optical amplifiers. |
| Impact | Publications from joint experiments, insights on next generation system design and management of nonlinearity in advanced optical communication systems. Direct contribution to the development of digital communications infrastructure. |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | Perkin Elmer |
| Organisation | Perkin Elmer |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | We are adapting our technology for use in pre-clinical imaging, including direct contributions to the top-level design of an pre-clinical scanner protitype |
| Collaborator Contribution | They have trained us on the needs of the pre-clinical imaging industry and are funding research in our group. |
| Impact | Two papers: 1) Modregger P, Meganck J, Hagen C K, Massimi L, Olivo A and Endrizzi M "Improved iterative tomographic reconstruction for x-ray imaging with edge-illumination", Phys. Med. Biol. 64 (2019) 205008 https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6560/ab439d 2) Hagen C K, Endrizzi M, Towns R, Megank J A and Olivo A "A preliminary investigation into the use of edge illumination x-ray phase contrast micro-CT for preclinical imaging", Mol. Imaging Biol. (2019) 10.1007/s11307-019-01396-5 DOI: 10.1007/s11307-019-01396-5 |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Quantum Communications Hub |
| Organisation | Quantum Communications Hub |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Learned Society |
| PI Contribution | The ultra high resolution optical spectrum analysis capability has been used in the testing of National Dark Fibre Infrastructure Service fibre transmission paths that are used for quantum key distribution field trials. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Quantum key distribution experiments. |
| Impact | Quantum key distribution field trials. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Scintacor |
| Organisation | Scintacor |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | We are opening new device development frontiers alongside application developments |
| Collaborator Contribution | They are developing new scintillator technology specifically aimed at our imaging methods |
| Impact | Further funding (2018 "Low-cost, structured scintillators for x-ray phase contrast imaging and application to the early diagnosis of osteoarticular diseases", EPSRC/UCL Impact Acceleration Account "Discovery to Use" (D2U), £97,772, see below) to which they have contributed directly. The first test structures are being produced as I write. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | 3. Incoherent x-ray phase contrast imaging methods based on intensity modulation, Direct Conversion AIC Opening Symposium, Graefeling Application and Innovation Centre, Munich, Germany, Jul 5-6 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Present new technological capabilities to specific actors in detector industry |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Current state-of-the-art and applications of edge-illumination x-ray phase contrast imaging, Nikon, Yokohama Plant, Yokohama city, Kanagawa, Japan Oct 25 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Engage with Nikon HQs in Japan (so far we had an intense collaboration with the UK Branch "Nikon X-Tek Systems") |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Detecting the undetectable - transforming the use of x-rays 124 years after their discovery, UCL Minds Lunch Hour Lectures, UCL, Oct 29 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public engagement - present new technological capabilities and their applications to the general public |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Multi-modal x-ray imaging, Academia-Government networking event on transport security, The Principal, Manchester, Nov 22 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Present new technological capabilities to policymakers and industry |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Phase contrast imaging: giving x-rays soft tissue sensitivity, Medical Imaging Convention 2019, NEC Birmingham, Mar 26-27 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Present new technological capabilities to medical practitioners |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Stand at "Made@UCL" Science Fair, Oct 5 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public engagement - present new technological capabilities and their applications to the general public |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |