The Scottish Doctoral Training Centre in Condensed Matter Physics, known as the CM-DTC, is an EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) addressing the broad field of Condensed Matter Physics (CMP). CMP is a core discipline that underpins many other areas of science, and is one of the Priority Areas for this CDT call. Renewal funding for the CM-DTC will allow five more annual cohorts of PhD students to be recruited, trained and released onto the market. They will be highly educated professionals with a knowledge of the field, in depth and in breadth, that will equip them for future leadership in a variety of academic and industrial careers. Condensed Matter Physics research impacts on many other fields of science including engineering, biophysics, photonics, chemistry, and materials science. It is a significant engine for innovation and drives new technologies. Recent examples include the use of liquid crystals for displays including flat-screen and 3D television, and the use of solid-state or polymeric LEDs for power-saving high-illumination lighting systems. Future examples may involve harnessing the potential of graphene (the world's thinnest and strongest sheet-like material), or the creation of exotic low-temperature materials whose properties may enable the design of radically new types of (quantum) computer with which to solve some of the hardest problems of mathematics. The UK's continued ability to deliver transformative technologies of this character requires highly trained CMP researchers such as those the Centre will produce. The proposed training approach is built on a strong framework of taught lecture courses, with core components and a wide choice of electives. This spans the first two years so that PhD research begins alongside the coursework from the outset. It is complemented by hands-on training in areas such as computer-intensive physics and instrument building (including workshop skills and 3D printing). Some lecture courses are delivered in residential schools but most are videoconferenced live, using the well-established infrastructure of SUPA (the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance). Students meet face to face frequently, often for more than one day, at cohort-building events that emphasise teamwork in science, outreach, transferable skills and careers training. National demand for our graduates is demonstrated by the large number of companies and organisations who have chosen to be formally affiliated with our CDT as Industrial Associates. The range of sectors spanned by these Associates is notable. Some, such as e2v and Oxford Instruments, are scientific consultancies and manufacturers of scientific equipment, whom one would expect to be among our core stakeholders. Less obviously, the list also represents scientific publishers, software houses, companies small and large from the energy sector, large multinationals such as Solvay-Rhodia and Siemens, and finance and patent law firms. This demonstrates a key attraction of our graduates: their high levels of core skills, and a hands-on approach to problem solving. These impart a discipline-hopping ability which more focussed training for specific sectors can complement, but not replace. This breadth is prized by employers in a fast-changing environment where years of vocational training can sometimes be undermined very rapidly by unexpected innovation in an apparently unrelated sector. As the UK builds its technological future by funding new CDTs across a range of priority areas, it is vital to include some that focus on core discipline skills, specifically Condensed Matter Physics, rather than the interdisciplinary or semi-vocational training that features in many other CDTs. As well as complementing those important activities today, our highly trained PhD graduates will be equipped to lay the foundations for the research fields (and perhaps some of the industrial sectors) of tomorrow.

Whilst Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) have been used for Hyperspectral missions for many years with great success, new developments in Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor technology offer the chance to significantly improve detectors for, and to provide higher resolution datasets in Earth observation. e2v technologies are the supplier of CCD imagers to the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sentinel missions. Future Sentinels, launched from 2013, are to carry a range of technologies from radar to Hyperspectral imaging instruments for land, ocean and atmospheric monitoring, covering a wide range of NERC environmental science themes. However, as CCD image sensors have fundamental limitations in this application which prohibit further improvements in performance, to move forwards and provide significant advances in this field one must consider the use of the newer and potentially superior technology and establish programmes for investment and development. CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) technology has many potential advantages over CCD-based systems. Firstly, each Hyperspectral image consists of many spectral lines which vary largely in intensity. A CCD must transfer all faint spectral lines through the part of the imager that has been illuminated by more intense lines, leading to cross-talk and reducing the quality of the dataset. CIS sensors do not require charge to be transferred and can therefore completely remove this cross-talk. Secondly, a CCD can only operate at one frame-rate and one sensitivity at any given time and a compromise must be made in the sensitivity and dynamic range; the difference in the brightness in an image between snow, vegetation and water can vary dramatically yet the CCD can only be optimised for one spectral band. Advanced CIS pixels offer the potential to be read and reset in any order at any time, allowing the sensitivity to be set on a line-by-line basis; high-intensity bands can be read out more frequently, dramatically increasing the dynamic range of the detector. Current CMOS image sensors are generally based around 4 or 5 transistors per pixel (4T or 5T), with 5 transistors allowing the application of a global reset or double sampling, with Correlated Double Sampling (CDS) applied off-pixel. However, a global snapshot shutter is required to ensure that all pixels are integrating over exactly the same time period and therefore the same region of the Earth's surface, removing smearing that can be present when using CCDs due to the transfer of charge. Lowest noise performance can only be achieved through the use of CDS, which must be included in the pixel to allow variable readout-rates from one spectral band to the next, therefore optimising the sensitivity across all spectral bands. However, these properties cannot be achieved simultaneously using current 5T CIS technology. In order to achieve both a global snapshot shutter and in-pixel CDS, one must develop a CIS pixel containing many more transistors. Through innovations in CIS at e2v, a new 10T pixel design has been implemented in a small-area test array. This technology is as yet unproven (currently at TRL 2) and requires thorough characterisation to determine not only the more general performance of the pixel, but the specific applicability to the field of Hyperspectral imaging. Through in-depth characterisation and optimisation of the pixel, backed up by Silvaco ATLAS simulations of the pixel performance, we aim to implement a proof-of-concept study of this new development in CIS technology for the field of Hyperspectral imaging. The programme would proceed through TRL 3 with testing of analytical and critical function, moving into testing for TRL 4 through component and breadboard validation. Only through in-depth characterisation, optimisation and simulation can the device be fully analysed and optimised, leading to the consequent developments for the design and production into a full-scale device.

Detectors needed by particle physics experiments have to withstand huge radiation doses and work for many years. As accelerators become able to reach higher energies and create more and more collisions per second, the requirements for detectors to survive inside the experiments becomes highly challenging. At the moment, the best option for high speed, radiation hard position sensitive detectors is to use segmented silicon. For the volume of the experiment where charged tracks need to be reconstructed as they bend in a high magnetic field, large areas of detectors measuring the particle trajectories to hundredth of a millimeter precision are needed. While we know how to do this with silicon and the LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS have silicon trackers of 60m2 and 200m2 area respectively, we do not know how to build arrays of these areas suitable for ten times the expected dose at the LHC. This is exactly the requirement of the Super-LHC which will operate with an average collision rate ten times that of the LHC. The proposal is a novel approach to building detectors affordably that can meet these demands. It builds on experience at Liverpool in making smaller detector systems able to cope with these very high doses and proposes to explore processing tricks developed for other radiation environments by e2v to come up with a robust method for making the large quantities of silicon microstrip detectors required for the SLHC. Please note: We have tried to put in a joint proposal specifying that e2v are the lead institute. However, since e2v will not input using the JeS system, this seems not to be accepted. This has been reported to JeS (RE: Possible technical difficulties with industry let join bids - HA207389) and they confirmed the system does not allow this. Therefore, we want to make sure STFC understand this is an e2v led bid despite the way this has to be input to JeS so that the electronic system will accept the application.

The last fifty years have seen spectacular progress in the ability to assemble materials with a precision of nanometers (a few atoms across). This nanofabrication ability is built upon the twin pillars of lithography and pattern transfer. A whole range of tools are used for pattern transfer. Lithography is a photographic process for the production of small structures in which structures are "drawn" in a thin radiation sensitive film. Then comes the pattern transfer step in which the shapes are transferred into a useful material, such as that of an active semiconductor device or a metal wire. Lithography is the key process used to make silicon integrated circuits, such as a microprocessor with eight billion working transistors, or a camera chip which is over two inches across. The manufacture of microprocessors is accomplished in large, dedicated factories which are limited to making one type of device. Also, normal lithography tools require the production of large, perfect and extremely expensive "negatives" so that it is only economical to use this technology to make huge numbers of identical devices. The applications of lithography are far broader than just making silicon chips, however. For example, large areas of small dots of material can be used to make cells grow in particular directions or to become certain cell types for use in regenerative medicine; The definition of an exquisitely precise diffraction grating on a laser allows it to produce the perfectly controlled wavelengths of light needed to make portable atomic clocks or to measure the tiny magnetic fields associated with the functioning of the brain; Lithography enables the direct manipulation of quantum states needed to refine the international standards of time and electrical current and may one day revolutionise computation; By controlling the size and shape of a material we can give it new properties, enabling the replacement of scarce strategic materials such as tellurium in the harvesting of waste thermal energy. This grant will enable the installation of an "electron-beam lithography" system in an advanced general-purpose fabrication laboratory. Electron beam lithography uses an electron beam rather than light to expose the resist and has the same advantages of resolution that an electron microscope has over a light microscope. This system will allow the production of the tiniest structures over large samples but does not need an expensive "negative" to be made. Instead, like a laser printer, the pattern to be written is defined in software, so that there is no cost associated with changing the shape if only one object of a particular shape is to be made. The electron beam lithography system is therefore perfect for making small things for scientific research or for making small numbers of a specialized device for a small company. The tool will be housed in a laboratory which allows the processing of the widest possible range of materials, from precious gem diamonds a few millimetres across to disks of exotic semiconductor the size of dinner plates. The tool will be used by about 200 people from all over the UK and the world. By running continuously the tool will be very inexpensive to use, allowing the power of leading-edge lithography to be used by anyone, from students to small businesses. The tool will be supported and operated by a large dedicated team of extremely experienced staff, so that the learning curve to applying the most advanced incarnation of the most powerful technology of the age will be reduced to a matter of a few weeks.

Many X-ray imaging detectors, from medical diagnosis to the examination of energy levels in atoms, are based on the same technology as found in digital cameras. Most X-rays pass straight through these Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) and CMOS detectors and it is therefore necessary to use a thicker detector (e.g. CMOS hybrid) or a scintillator. However, current methods produce detector systems with limited performance: CMOS-hybrid technology requires intricate features limiting the minimum pixel size and spatial resolution, whilst the readout speed of CCD-based systems is limited by higher noise levels. Over recent years we have completed an STFC funded concept study on a novel photon-counting detector. The Electron-Multiplying (EM) CCD was designed for low light level imaging such as night-time surveillance or night-vision. The EM-CCD differs from the standard CCD through the addition of a "gain register". By multiplying the signal by thousands, the effective read noise of the device can be reduced to the sub-electron level, allowing operation at very high speeds. If a scintillator is coupled to an EM-CCD then this low effective noise allows analysis of single photon interactions (photon counting), providing higher resolution imaging and energy discrimination. The small area (8mm x 8mm) scintillator-coupled EM-CCD operated at 2fps, limiting potential applications. Further developments are required to transfer this technology and expertise to the marketplace. We aim to produce a large area, high speed X-ray detector module, making use of the now commercially available high-speed electronics developed from the STFC funded 'Lucky Imaging' at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. By coupling a fibre-optic taper to a larger area EM-CCD, an increase in area of over 44 times is possible. It is envisaged that a series of modules will then be formed into an array, creating a much larger system. We also aim to test the suitability of the scintillating fibre-optic (SFO). Whilst the SFO has largely been ignored for use with a CCD due to lower light output, it has a highly structured form, minimising the signal spread. With the EM-CCD's ability to apply gain to the signal, it is expected that a high-resolution integrating system may be produced. In comparison to previous detectors, the expected performance of the new module will give a higher resolution, faster speed (increasing beamline throughput), higher effective dynamic range through higher maximum flux before saturation and higher detection efficiency, higher signal to noise and operation at higher temperatures. The projected specifications of the module will provide these substantial benefits to users, including allowing higher throughput in the beamline facilities and shutter-less performance, providing the high speed of the low resolution 'pixel detectors' and the high resolution of the low speed CCD systems. Through the production of a proof of concept prototype module, not only will this technology be opened up to the marketplace, but the range of applications for the EM-CCD will be dramatically expanded, opening new markets for this device. This detector is aimed towards applications at synchrotron facilities such as macromolecular crystallography, surface diffraction or small-angle scattering techniques, high energy X-ray diffraction and phase-contrast imaging. Applications in medical imaging may also be envisaged for a larger array of modules. The market for this detector is approximately $94M worldwide and we aim to bring the same revolutionary performance enhancements that were experienced in the fields of fluorescent and luminescent markers in life sciences from the introduction of EM-CCD camera systems. To transfer this technology and expertise to the marketplace, we propose to build a proof of concept module with the support of e2v technologies, a leading designer, developer and manufacturer of high performance imaging sensors.