PDRA, PhD & Support Staff profiles
Hetero-print brings together researchers from the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Manchester, Cambridge and Sheffield.
Dr Oleksandr Kanibolotskyy
PDRA, University of Glasgow (Chemistry), WP1
Alex has worked with Pete Skabara for over 15 years and is a very experienced researcher in organic materials. Specifically, his involvement covers all aspects of organic synthesis, physical organic chemistry and materials science, including the design and synthesis of p-functional systems for organic electronics and photonics. This has led to publications spanning conjugated polymers and oligomers for photovoltaics, field effect transistors, light emitting devices, distributed feedback lasers and downconverters for ultra-parallel visible light communications. Alex’s role in Hetero-print focuses on the design and synthesis of materials for switchable adhesion, photonic structures and sensors.
Dr Alex Loch
PDRA, University of Glasgow (Chemistry), WP1
Alex completed dual Bachelor's degrees in Information Technology and Science at the University of Queensland in Australia, with a major in Chemistry. He then obtained an Honours degree in Chemistry, researching polydendrimers for fluorescence-based detection of explosive vapours. For his PhD at the Centre for Organic Photonics and Electronics, University of Queensland, Alex investigated using luminescent materials to rapidly and sensitively detect illicit low-volatility street drugs. He currently works on interfacial chemistry and membrane bonding for the Hetero-print project with the Adams and Skabara groups. Alex's scientific interests include organic synthesis, organic optoelectronics, and designing bespoke laboratory equipment.
Dr Benoit Guilhabert
Research Co-investigator, Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde, WP2
Benoit received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Strathclyde in Photonics where he pioneered the heterogeneous integration of Gallium Nitride microLEDs with organic light-emitting polymers. Prior to his doctoral studies, he received an Engineering degree in sensors and industrial manufacturing and a Diplôme d’Étude Approfondie (Master equivalent) in integrated photonics sensors from the University of Maine, France. Following several post-doctoral positions at the Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde, he joined the HeteroPrint project as a Researcher Co-Investigator. His role in the project is to coordinate the various technical demonstrations of Transfer Printing, pioneering novel technologies related to this activity and to act as a link between the various partners in terms of technological requirement and deployment. He is particularly involved in the engineering aspect of Transfer Printing from physical phenomena to machine design.
Dr Elizabeth Ann Prieto
PDRA, University of Sheffield, WP4
Elizabeth earned her BS, MS, and PhD in Physics at the National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD).
Her scientific research concentration is on III-V semiconductors with more than a decade of hands-on experience on GaAs- and Si-based semiconductor device fabrication, thin film growth, and optoelectronic characterisation.
Presently working under the supervision of Prof Jon Heffernan, she is primarily tasked with the development and execution of optimum processes and techniques to fabricate vertical cavity laser sources in transfer printing membrane format.
She carried out device processing training at the Berkeley Marvell Nanolab under Prof Constance Chang-Hasnain and prior to postdoctoral works was a leading personnel in the development and implementation of molecular beam epitaxy-related works at UPD under Prof Arnel Salvador, Prof Elmer Estacio, and Prof Armando Somintac.
Xenofon Karagiorgis
PhD student, University of Glasgow (Engineering), WP4
Xenofon completed his undergraduate studies in Nicosia, Cyprus. He received his BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering with minor in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Cyprus. Following this, he continued his studies in University of Strathclyde, where he attained a MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering. Currently, he is a member of the Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) group at the University of Glasgow. As a PhD candidate in the laboratory of Prof. Ravinder Dahiya, his research focuses on the fabrication of conductive, piezo- and tribo-electric electrospun nanofibers for an all fiber -based device with biomedical applications.
Dimitars Jevtics
PDRA, Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde, WP2
Dimitars received his MEng in electronic engineering and nanotechnology in 2015 from the University of York (UK). He then joined the Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde (UK) where he is currently completing his PhD degree. His project focuses on the heterogeneous integration of semiconductor nanowire lasers into nano-photonic systems by means of highly-accurate micro-transfer printing nanofabrication techniques. Dimitars has extensive expertise in the hybrid integration of nanowire lasers and the design and characterisation of hybrid nanolaser systems. His research interests are in hybrid integrated nanophotonic systems and 1- and 2-D materials platforms. Since 2019 he is now a Research Assistant working on the HeteroPrint project.
Miles Toon
PhD student, Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde, WP2/WP3
Miles completed an Undergraduate Integrated Master’s degree in physics at the University of Birmingham from 2013-2017, specialising in nanophotonics and quantum optics. His Master’s project involved the design and construction of a tapered amplifier, while for this project he is working on successful transfer printing, with nanoscale accuracy, to realise large parallel arrays of devices. Longer term, this will be applied to fabrication of microLEDs in displays. Additionally, Miles is investigating the stacking of devices made with novel materials (such as porous GaN developed by Cambridge) with LEDs to create an RCLED.
Eleni Margariti
PhD student, Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde, WP2
Eleni completed her undergraduate studies in 2017 in the Physics Department of University of Crete (Greece) while she was working as a research student in Ultrafast Laser Micro and Nano Processing Laboratory in the Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH). She obtained her Master Degree in Microsystems and Nanodevices in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences in National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in collaboration with the National Centre of Scientific Research ‘’Demokritos’’. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Photonics in the University of Strathclyde and member of Integrated Optics Group. Her project is focused on the development of a direct, multilayer technique in order to achieve high yield mass transfer printing of 3D opto-electronic devices and assess this assembly technology to ensure its capability towards a commercially available hybrid integration manufacturing technique.
Steve Cohen
PhD student, Institute of Photonics at the University of Strathclyde, WP2
Steve completed his undergraduate degree in Physics at the University of Bristol in 2012 before gaining a masters in the Plasma Physics of Fusion Energy at the University of York in 2014. After moving to Glasgow the following year, Steve completed a masters in Applied Physics at the University of Strathclyde in 2019, concentrating on photonics and nano physics. Beginning in October 2020, Steve is currently a PhD student at the Institute of Photonics in the University of Strathclyde and a member of the Integrated Optics Group. The title of the project is ‘Integrating photonic circuits for silicon electronics for low power computing’ and work will concentrate on making low loss waveguides on SOI wafers and integrating light sources and detectors via transfer printing.
Dr Paul Edwards
PDRA, University of Strathclyde (Physics), WP1/WP3
Paul studied for a PhD at the University of Durham and completed additional post-doctoral research before joining the University of Strathclyde in 2000. He is now a SUPA Advanced Fellow and has over 20 years' experience of characterising semiconducting materials using spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. He will be applying these techniques in support of work packages 1 and 3, and in particular will oversee the application of mechanical nano-probes in a scanning electron microscope to study the micro transfer-printing process.
Douglas Cameron
PhD Student, University of Strathclyde (Physics), WP1/WP3
Douglas obtained an MPhys from the University of Strathclyde where he studied rare-earth doped III-nitrides. Now pursuing a PhD working with semiconductor nanostructures, he has acquired expertise in optical, electrical and mechanical characterisation techniques. For this project he is investigating the mechanics of the transfer printing process using nanoprobes in a scanning electron microscope.
Dr Simon Fairclough
PDRA, University of Cambridge, WP3
Simon undertook a DPhil at the University of Oxford, followed by post-doctoral positions at Kings College London and the University of Manchester. He has expertise not only in the synthesis of core-shell colloidal nanoparticle, but also studying how strain influences their optical properties using a variety of imaging techniques such as single nanoparticle optical microscopy, synchrotron XPS, high resolution TEM, cathodoluminescence and XRD. His role in the Hetero-print project is to understand the strain and defects within the growth of nitride films and the resulting chiplets, mainly via electron microscopy and utilising modelling to find strategies to mitigate these stresses and strains.
Dr Elisa Sala
PDRA, University of Sheffield, WP4
Elisa graduated in Solid State Physics at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy) in 2012, and in 2018 she earned her PhD in Solid State Physics at the Technical University of Berlin (Germany). Her research interests are the epitaxial growth and the characterisation of III-V semiconductors, in particular quantum dots. In July 2018 she joined the EPSRC National Epitaxy Facility of the University of Sheffield as a Research Associate in MOVPE and took part in the Hetero-print project within the system demonstrator package. Her role is the provision of dedicated III-V epitaxial structures, in particular phosphides, with a special focus on InAs quantum dots as building blocks for novel optoelectronic devices.
Dr Ofogh Tizno
PDRA, University of Sheffield, WP4
Ofogh gained her Bachelor and Master of Science from Tehran University and Arak University, Iran. In 2011 she moved to Sweden and pursued her second masters degree from Lund University where she went on to have a number of positions, most recently as a research assistant working on a variety of axial and radial semiconductor nanowires. In 2014 she was awarded a Faculty of Science and Technology PhD Scholarship for international students at Lancaster University, where she worked on the design, fabrication, and characterisation of novel, non-volatile, low-power memory devices based on MBE-grown III-V semiconductors, before moving to a post-doc position at the Quantum Technology Centre in Lancaster University in 2018. In 2019 she joined Professor Heffernan’s group at the University of Sheffield to be a part of the research group working on the transfer print of micro- and nano-size semiconductor photonic devices.
Paige Baldwin
PhD student, University of Sheffield, WP4
Paige graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Physics in 2018 and went on to complete an MSc in Semiconductor Photonics and Electronics in 2020, both at the University of Sheffield. She is currently undertaking a PhD within the Semiconductor Materials and Devices research group at Sheffield, working towards the transfer printing of semiconductor photonic devices.
Chak Lam Chan (Henry)
PhD student, University of Sheffield, WP4
Chak Lam (Henry) completed his MEng in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of Sheffield in 2020. After graduating he joined the Hetero-print team to purse his passion for nanotechnology where he is pursuing his PhD at the University of Sheffield. His focus will be on the development of a variety of material processes in order to fabricated systems for Quantum information processing and Quantum communications within Hetero-print.
Dr Fengyuan Liu
PDRA, University of Glasgow (Engineering), WP4
Fengyuan received his B.S. degree in Physics and M.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering from Nanjing University, China, in 2012 and 2015, respectively. He did his Ph.D. study in large-area electronics from 2015 to 2019 in the School of Engineering, University of Glasgow. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in University of Glasgow. His research interest covers nanomaterial based devices and circuits, flexible and printable electronics, various sensors and artificial neural networks.
Dr Abhishek Dahiya
PDRA, University of Glasgow (Engineering), WP4
Abhishek received his master’s in technology in nanoscience and nanotechnology from GGS Indraprastha University (India) in 2011 and the Ph.D. degree from the GREMAN laboratory, Université François Rabelais de Tours, France in 2016. He performed his postdoctoral work at the GREMAN laboratory (2016-2017), the University of Bordeaux (ICMCB/CNRS) (2018-2019), and at the Institut d’Electronique et des Systèmes, CNRS and Université de Montpellier (2019-2020) in France. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow. His research interest covers synthesis of metal oxide nanostructures and fabrication of nanodevices such as field-effect transistors, source gated transistors, gas and strain sensors, and piezoelectric energy harvesters. For this project, he is investigating the potential of super inkjet printing and contact printing for the fabrication of large area flexible electronics.
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Adamos Christou
PhD student, University of Glasgow (Engineering), WP4
Adamos completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Glasgow where he received a BEng in Mechatronics Engineering. Currently, as a member of the Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies group at the University of Glasgow, he is pursuing a PhD degree focusing on printing of electronic layers and devices on flexible substrates.
Prof Geoff Williams
Impact Champion
Professor Geoff Williams is a visiting professor in Durham University’s Energy Institute and Physics department, he’s also a Senior Affiliate in Glasgow University’s Chemistry department. He’s an independent technology/business consultant specialising in advising and supporting the migration of emerging technologies through to commercialisation, ranging from SMEs to large businesses and universities. He is a Commercialisation/Impact Champion for several large EPSRC grants managed by Prof Pete Skabara in Glasgow University. Geoff is a highly experienced programme manager of multi-disciplinary, multi-business project teams in TSB funded projects Topless and Topdrawer. Since 2006 Geoff has raised over £10M of public money supporting over £15M of R&D developments in a range of sectors including oled lighting, photonics and integrated low carbon energy systems, delivering prototypes and pilot manufactured product viable for commercial activities. He conducts works supporting the commercialisation of active Innovate UK funded projects and H2020 projects. He is a pro-active advocator of ‘smart’ solutions integrated with other emerging technologies, such as printed electronic controls, visible light communications, renewable power generation and low voltage dc grids.
He sits on several influential technology focused bodies: Photonics 21, in Europe, the UK’s CPIPE Technology Advisory Board.
Dr John Morrison
PDRA, University of Manchester, WP1
John grew up in the west of Scotland before receiving his B.Sc., M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from the University of St. Andrews during 1990 to 1998. He has since conducted research in the Melville Laboratory in Cambridge, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of St Andrews before his current postdoctoral research position in the Organic Materials Innovation Centre at the University of Manchester. He has published around 50 papers over a number of disciplines from natural products to the synthesis and properties of dendrimers, organic electronic polymers and small molecules. He is currently working on WP1 of Hetero-print with interests in the study of modified PDMS surfaces and synthesis of azobenzene dendrimers.
Hao Yang
PhD student, University of Glasgow (Chemistry), WP1
Hao completed a BSc in Chemistry at the University of Sheffield, followed by a MSc in Nanoscience at the University of Strathclyde, before joining the Skabara group at the University of Glasgow in 2018 to study for a PhD. He is currently working on the modification of stamps that can improve both the pick-up and release abilities during the transfer-printing process.
Dr Balaji Purushothaman
Project Manager
Balaji completed his Masters in Polymers from the University of Madras, Chennai, India. After a couple of years working in the industry, he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, to pursue a PhD degree in chemistry under the guidance of Prof. John Anthony. He synthesised heteroacenes and partially halogenated acenes for OTFTs and solar cells. After successfully graduating, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in printed solar cells at the University of Melbourne for the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC). He then joined Prof. Iain McCulloch’s group at Imperial College London, where he worked as a Research Associate for a couple of years for the ArtESun Project. He then moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to work as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Iain McCulloch’s group at KAUST Solar Centre, synthesising conjugated organic materials for transistor and photocatalysis. In August 2022, he joined Prof. Peter Skabara’s group as a Programme Grant Coordinator for the Hetero-Print Project. In addition to conducting research, his role involves organising and planning research meetings across the partner Universities and coordinating project resources.
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