EPSRC Capital Award for Core Equipment

Following the invitation to apply for core equipment funding, the University of Sheffield promoted the opportunity across its EPSRC funded laboratories and communities. Expressions of interest were collected and a cross-faculty panel made the decision about what would fit with the proposed budget, criteria and institutional strategies. Capital investment will support the following fields:
- Semiconductor/organic devices fabrication through the purchase of a magnetron sputtering vacuum deposition system.
- Particle coating and characterisation by creating a suite of equipment including a Zeta potential and DLS particle sizer system, dielectric spectroscopy and a vacuum loadlock addition to our metal evaporator.
- Research requiring ultrafast spectroscopy through the acquisition of an autocorrelator.
- Quantum technology with the support of an arbitrary waveform generator.
- Lithography with an argon ion laser.
- Robotics with the purchase of four Jackal Rovers and a Tiago mobile robot.
Equipment will be hosted in six laboratories across the two faculties of Science and Engineering. New equipment is expected to increase the efficiency of existing facilities, open up new areas of collaborative research and enable novel insights.

The proposed equipment covers a wide range of research interests and therefore will ultimately impact on a number of different sectors. Multiple research projects will be connected to the facilities and each partners with specific companies and end users. Here we broadly summarise some of the benefits.

The research underpinned by this equipment will impact many technologies targeted by the Government's Industrial Strategy: we aim to design materials for next-generation photovoltaic devices (prospering from the energy revolution); quantum optical sensors (leading edge healthcare/quantum technologies/from data to early diagnosis and precision medicine) and for quantum communications and quantum computing (quantum technologies). It is also relevant to EPSRCs Prosperity Outcomes. Our new approach to the design of photonic materials, inspired by biology and synthesised from earth-abundant elements via low-energy routes, offers the possibility of enhanced efficiency and new levels of performance. The research enabled by this equipment will create translational opportunities in a wide range of areas including biological sensors, solar energy capture, optoelectronics, precision agriculture, mining and quantum technologies. For example, one of our goals is to facilitate the development of a new generation of low-cost, sensitive, quantitative quantum optical sensors, based upon synthetic biological metamaterials. Another goal is to support new energy storage solutions for hybrid grids.

The laboratories hosting equipment have strong track records in engaging with companies including Johnson Matthey Plc, AkzoNobel and Proctor Group.