Major advances in fabrication techniques now allows the building of new materials and devices on an atomic or molecular scale. These engineered materials can offer great advantages such as increased energy efficiency, strength, antibacterial properties and more. Their potential is vast, and very exciting to a range of industry sectors from medicine to aircraft manufacture.
To use - and continue to advance - the possibilities of these nano-engineered materials requires tools that can efficiently measure and characterise their properties.
Oliver is working to transform high-speed atomic force microscopy (HSAFM) into a diagnostic and fabrication tool to do precisely this.
His work is up to the challenge posed by imaging nano scale structures over sample areas which are industrially relevant. HSAFM is capable of imaging areas several thousand times faster than conventional atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Oliver's research at the University of Bristol will provide a tool to produce terra-pixel sized 3D images of surfaces. It will also be capable of rapidly prototyping nano structures over centimetre-sized areas in a matter of hours.
Mapping, measuring and manufacturing nanostructures via high-speed atomic force microscopy is now a possibility.
