We propose a Centre for Doctoral Training in Integrative Sensing and Measurement that addresses the unmet UK need for specialist training in innovative sensing and measurement systems identified by EPSRC priorities the TSB and EPOSS . The proposed CDT will benefit from the strategic, targeted investment of >£20M by the partners in enhancing sensing and measurement research capability and by alignment with the complementary, industry-focused Innovation Centre in Sensor and Imaging Systems (CENSIS). This investment provides both the breadth and depth required to provide high quality cohort-based training in sensing across the sciences, medicine and engineering and into the myriad of sensing applications, whilst ensuring PhD supervision by well-resourced internationally leading academics with a passion for sensor science and technology. The synergistic partnership of GU and UoE with their active sensors-related research collaborations with over 160 companies provides a unique research excellence and capability to provide a dynamic and innovative research programme in sensing and measurement to fuel the development pipeline from initial concept to industrial exploitation.

This proposal seeks funding to create a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Connected Electronic and Photonic Systems (CEPS). Photonics has moved from a niche industry to being embedded in the majority of deployed systems, ranging from sensing, biophotonics and advanced manufacturing, through communications from the chip-to-chip to transcontinental scale, to display technologies, bringing higher resolution, lower power operation and enabling new ways of human-machine interaction. These advances have set the scene for a major change in commercialisation activity where electronics photonics and wireless converge in a wide range of information, sensing, communications, manufacturing and personal healthcare systems. Currently manufactured systems are realised by combining separately developed photonics, electronic and wireless components. This approach is labour intensive and requires many electrical interconnects as well as optical alignment on the micron scale. Devices are optimised separately and then brought together to meet systems specifications. Such an approach, although it has delivered remarkable results, not least the communications systems upon which the internet depends, limits the benefits that could come from systems-led design and the development of technologies for seamless integration of electronic photonics and wireless systems. To realise such connected systems requires researchers who have not only deep understanding of their specialist area, but also an excellent understanding across the fields of electronic photonics and wireless hardware and software. This proposal seeks to meet this important need, building upon the uniqueness and extent of the UCL and Cambridge research, where research activities are already focussing on higher levels of electronic, photonic and wireless integration; the convergence of wireless and optical communication systems; combined quantum and classical communication systems; the application of THz and optical low-latency connections in data centres; techniques for the low-cost roll-out of optical fibre to replace the copper network; the substitution of many conventional lighting products with photonic light sources and extensive application of photonics in medical diagnostics and personalised medicine. Many of these activities will increasingly rely on more advanced systems integration, and so the proposed CDT includes experts in electronic circuits, wireless systems and software. By drawing these complementary activities together, and building upon initial work towards this goal carried out within our previously funded CDT in Integrated Photonic and Electronic Systems, it is proposed to develop an advanced training programme to equip the next generation of very high calibre doctoral students with the required technical expertise, responsible innovation (RI), commercial and business skills to enable the £90 billion annual turnover UK electronics and photonics industry to create the closely integrated systems of the future. The CEPS CDT will provide a wide range of methods for learning for research students, well beyond that conventionally available, so that they can gain the required skills. In addition to conventional lectures and seminars, for example, there will be bespoke experimental coursework activities, reading clubs, roadmapping activities, responsible innovation (RI) studies, secondments to companies and other research laboratories and business planning courses. Connecting electronic and photonic systems is likely to expand the range of applications into which these technologies are deployed in other key sectors of the economy, such as industrial manufacturing, consumer electronics, data processing, defence, energy, engineering, security and medicine. As a result, a key feature of the CDT will be a developed awareness in its student cohorts of the breadth of opportunity available and the confidence that they can make strong impact thereon.

The march of technological progress has given us devices that are ever smaller and more complex: today's smart phones for example are almost unrecognizable in their size and their range of functions from the models of 25 years ago. This progress has taken us to the point where devices must now be understood in terms of the quantum behaviour of their constituent particles, a new frontier in technology that furthermore will lead to completely new applications. However, building fully quantum mechanical models of devices is notoriously difficult: the amount of information needed to describe a quantum system scales exponentially with its size. The situation is even worse when one must consider how the environment interacts with the device, and yet this is a crucial consideration for real devices. However, we have recently developed a new quantum simulation technique with remarkable efficiency: by keeping just the most important information we are able to track the behaviour of a single particle even when it is interacting very strongly with all of the other particles in its environment. In this project, we will exploit this new technique to design, simulate, and optimize four types of nanoscale devices with various technological applications. The functioning of all these devices relies on similar physics, namely how the device interacts with the environment. As such, our new method is ideally suited to all these areas. First, we will model solid state single photon sources. These produce quanta of light - photons - one at a time, and underpin future ideas for secure communication and quantum computing. We will find how the coupling between the photons and the vibrations of the solid determines affects their performance. Understanding this will allow us to determine how devices, either machined as thin wires or membranes or drawn as nanometre patterns in a solid matrix, could create more effective photon sources. Second, solar panels need to first absorb light energy from the sun, and then to transport it to electrodes. We will investigate the quantum mechanics of this energy transport problem, in particular for solar cells made of organic materials. Here, vibrations are very strongly coupled to the excited electrons that transport the energy, and our new technique is ideal for studying how this process works and how it might be improved by informed selection of component organic molecules. Third, a new frontier in electronics will be enabled if we can build circuits using molecules. Electric current is then a consequence of how electrons can tunnel quantum mechanically from one molecule to the next; this depends both on electronic coupling between molecules and how the molecules vibrate. We will use our technique to build models of molecular junctions, and explore how strong electronic and vibrational coupling changes the quantum transport properties of these materials. Fourth, diamonds have recently been at the forefront of a whole new kind of imaging technology. In particular, single electrons in diamond have a tiny magnetic moment, a 'spin', whose motion depends on how strong the magnetic field is at the position of the electron. Remarkably, the spin of a single electron can be measured in diamond, and so magnetic imaging with nanometre accuracy is a possibility. The limit of how well these 'nano-magnetometers' can work is set by how well they can be isolated from their environment. In this project, we will first use our novel approach to understand the dynamics of a spin coupled to its environment, and then show how to isolate spins more effectively. The project will advance several different nanotechnologies, and at the same time we will develop a unique and freely available tool that can be applied to a huge variety of new systems in future.

Quantum technologies promise a transformation of measurement, communication and computation by using ideas originating from quantum physics. The UK was the birthplace of many of the seminal ideas and techniques; the technologies are now ready to translate from the laboratory into industrial applications. Since international companies are already moving in this area, there is a critical need across the UK for highly-skilled researchers who will be the future leaders in quantum technology. Our proposal is driven by the need to train this new generation of leaders. They will need to be equipped to function in a complex research and engineering landscape where quantum physics meets cryptography, complexity and information theory, devices, materials, software and hardware engineering. We propose to train a cohort of leaders to meet these challenges within the highly interdisciplinary research environment provided by UCL, its commercial and governmental laboratory partners. In their first year the students will obtain a background in devices, information and computational sciences through three concentrated modules organized around current research issues. They will complete a team project and a longer individual research project, preparing them for their choice of main research doctoral topic at the end of the year. Cross-cohort training in communication skills, technology transfer, enterprise, teamwork and career planning will continue throughout the four years. Peer to peer learning will be continually facilitated not only by organized cross-cohort activities, but also by the day to day social interaction among the members of the cohort thanks to their co-location at UCL.

The proposed EPSRC CDT in the Science and Applications of Graphene and Related Nanomaterials will respond to the UK need to train specialists with the skills to manipulate new strictly two-dimensional (2D) materials, in particular graphene, and work effectively across the necessary interdisciplinary boundaries. Graphene has been dubbed a miracle material due to the unique combination of superior electronic, mechanical, optical, chemical and biocompatible properties suitable for a large number of realistic applications. The potential of other 2D materials (e.g. boron nitride, transition metal and gallium dichalcogenides) has become clear more recently and already led to developing 'materials on demand'. The proposed CDT will build on the world-leading research in graphene and other 2D nanomaterials at the Universities of Manchester (UoM) and Lancaster (LU). In the last few years this research has undergone huge expansion from fundamental physics into chemistry, materials science, characterization, engineering, and life sciences. The importance of developing graphene-based technology has been recognized by recent large-scale investments from UK and European governments, including the establishment of the National Graphene Institute (NGI) at UoM and the award of 'Graphene Flagship' funding by the European Commission within the framework of the Future and Emerging Technologies (Euro1 billion over the next 10 years), aiming to support UK and European industries.Tailored training of young researchers in these areas has now become urgent as numerous companies and spin-offs specializing in electronics, energy storage, composites, sensors, displays, packaging and separation techniques have joined the race and are investing heavily in development of graphene-based technologies. Given these developments, it is of national importance that we establish a CDT that will train the next generation of scientists and engineers who will able to realise the huge potential of graphene and related 2D materials, driving innovation in the UK, Europe and beyond. The CDT will work with industrial partners to translate the results of academic research into real-world applications in the framework of the NGI and support the highly successful research base at UoM and LU. The new CDT will build directly on the structures and training framework developed for the highly successful North-West Nanoscience DTC (NOWNANO). The central achievement of NOWNANO has been creating a wide ranging interdisciplinary PhD programme, educating a new type of specialist capable of thinking and working across traditional discipline boundaries. The close involvement of the medical/life sciences with the physical sciences was another prominent and successful feature of NOWNANO and one we will continue in the new CDT. In addition to interdisciplinarity, an important feature of the new CDT will be the engagement with a broad network of users in industry and society, nationally and internationally. The students will start their 4-year PhD with a rigorous, bespoke 6-month programme of taught and assessed courses covering a broad range of nanoscience and nanotechnology, extending beyond graphene to other nanomaterials and their applications. This will be followed by challenging, interdisciplinary research projects and a programme of CDT-wide events (annual conferences, regular seminars, training in transferable skills, commercialization training, outreach activities). International experience will be provided by visiting academics and secondments to overseas partners. Training in knowledge transfer will be a prominent feature of the proposed programme, including a bespoke course 'Innovation and Commercialisation of Research' to which our many industrial partners will contribute, and industrial experience in the form of 3 to 6 months secondments that each CDT student will undertake in the course of their PhD.