Stochastic growth phenomena naturally emerge in a variety of physical and biological contexts, such as growth of combustion fronts or bacterial colonies, crystal growth on thin films, turbulent liquid crystals, etc. Even though all these phenomena might appear very diverse at a microscopic scale, they often have the same large-scale behaviour and are therefore said to belong to the same Universality Class. This in particular means that an in-depth analysis of those processes describing these large-scale behaviours is bound to give very accurate quantitative and qualitative predictions about the wide variety of extremely complicated real-world systems in the same class. Over the last 40 years, the Mathematics and Physics communities in a joint effort determined what were widely believed to be the only two universal processes presumed to capture the large-scale behaviour of random interfaces in one spatial-dimension, namely the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang and Edrwards-Wilkinson Fixed Points, and studied their Universality Classes. In a recent work, I established the existence of a third, new universality class, entirely missed by researchers, and rigorously constructed the universal process at its core, the Brownian Castle. The introduction of this novel class opens a number of new stimulating pathways and a host of exciting questions that this proposal aims at investigating and answering. The second pillar of this research programme focuses on two-dimensional random surfaces, which are particularly relevant from a physical viewpoint as they correspond to the growth of two-dimensional surfaces in a three-dimensional space. Despite their importance, two-dimensional growth phenomena are by far the most challenging and the least understood. Very little is known concerning their universal large-scale properties and the even harder quest for fluctuations has barely been explored. The present proposal's goal is to develop powerful and robust tools to rigorously address these questions and consequently lay the foundations for a systematic study of these systems and their features. The last theme of this research plan concerns the Anderson Hamiltonian, also known as random Schrödinger operator. The interest in such an operator is motivated by its ramified connections to a variety of different areas in Mathematics and Physics both from a theoretical and a more applied perspective. Indeed, the spectral properties of the Anderson Hamiltonian are related to the solution theory of (random) Schrödinger's equations or properties of the parabolic Anderson model, random motion in random media or branching processes in random environment. The Anderson Hamiltonian has attracted the attention of a wide number of researchers, driven by the ambition of fully understanding its universal features and the celebrated phenomenon Anderson localisation. This proposal will establish new breakthroughs and tackle long-standing conjectures in the field by complementing the existing literature with novel techniques.

Mid-infrared (mid-IR) absorption spectroscopy is a well-known and versatile analytical technique for uniquely identifying and measuring the concentrations of gases, chemicals, and biological molecules by measuring which wavelengths of mid-IR light an analyte absorbs. Existing mid-IR absorption sensors are however either bulky and expensive (e.g. benchtop spectrometers), or have poor sensitivity and specificity (e.g. LED based sensors). Miniaturising such sensors could be transformative for diverse medical, industrial, and environmental sensing scenarios. High performance, low cost, and small spectroscopic sensors could be created using mid-IR optical circuits on silicon chips. These chips would ideally combine all of the required optical functions of the sensor (i.e. light source, waveguides for routing light, interaction between the light and the analyte, and light detection), and could be fabricated at low cost in high volumes, thanks to existing silicon manufacturing infrastructure that has been developed for electronics and for near-infrared optical communications. The last few years have seen rapid development of many of the components that are needed to create these sensor systems: silicon photonic waveguides that can transmit light with low loss at almost any mid-IR wavelength have been developed, while lasers emitting high powers in the mid-IR are now readily available and have been successfully integrated with silicon waveguides. However, there remains a crippling lack of practical photodetector technologies; those that have already been integrated wilth optical circuits on silicon chips are either expensive to manufacture, are impractical because they have to be cooled to cryogenic temperatures, or do not work at all required wavelengths. This project will develop new waveguide integrated thermal photodetectors, which work by converting the incoming light into a temperature change that can be measured with an electronic circuit. They will be able to operate at room temperature at any mid-IR wavelength, and will be manufactured using low cost techniques. This project will also demonstrate that sensors employing these photodetectors can reach the sensitivities required for clinical and industrial uses, by using them to measure low concentrations of artificial sweeteners in soft drinks - an industrially important example application. These detectors will potentially transform mid-infrared sensor systems from an academic curiosity into a commercially viable technology.

A superconductor is a material in which electricity can flow without energy loss. This is unlike ordinary metals which waste energy by getting hot due to the interaction between the flowing current and the material. The phenomenon of superconductivity has fascinated scientists and technologists since its discovery over 90 years ago. Unfortunately superconductors only work at low temperatures and there is always a limit to the maximum amount of electricity that can be transported. This explains why, in spite of repeated predictions, we don't yet see superconductors on electricity pylons and in everyday objects.In the last few years however materials, high-Tc superconductors , have been developed which work at temperatures, which while still a long way below freezing, are practical with existing refrigeration technology. Again there is a catch in that these ceramic materials have a granular structure. The granular structure can be thought of as the materials consisting of many individual crystals (similar to quartz or salt) connected together. The individual crystals are termed grains and the interfaces between them are grain boundaries. Unfortunately electricity does not flow well across grain boundaries and this limits the performance of large samples of high-Tc superconductor.The 'grain-boundary' problem is however being overcome by growing the superconductor on a carefully made strip of metal which aligns the ceramic grains so as to allow the current to flow easily. This means that the limiting factor is now not always the grain boundaries in these materials. We have recently shown that there is a cross-over point where the maximum current stops being limited by the grain boundaries and starts being limited by the individual grains. This depends on temperature, strength of any applied magnetic field and also the direction of any applied magnetic field.The final barrier to more widespread use of superconductors is in essence economic, they need to transport more current, more cheaply than the existing technology. My project seeks to understand how the current in the most promising superconducting material is affected by magnetic fields of various orientations and by the way the material is made. I am also intending to isolate individual grains and pairs of grains from these materials to study them and the interfaces between them. This will allow us to understand how new ways of improving the current carrying capacity work in detail and which of these techniques should be used in what combination to produce the best superconductor for each potential application.

In atoms, molecules or biological systems, all structural changes will modify the properties of the entity (form, colour, capacity to react with other entities etc ...). These changes are due to electronic and nuclear dynamics known as charge migrations (rearrangement of electrons and/or protons within the entity). However charge migrations are very fast and can occurs within 1/1000 000 000 000 000 second meaning from few attosecond (1e-18 sec) to few femtosecond (1e-15 sec). As an example in the Rutherford model of the hydrogen atom, known as the "planetary" model, an electron is moving around a proton (first orbital). The duration the electron takes to complete period around the proton is 150 asec. What is particularly exciting is to be able to make "a movie" of this ultra-fast dynamic that no existing device is capable to follow. My interests are actually not only to observe the first instants of these structural changes but also to control them to go deeper in the understanding of how chemical reactions or biological phenomena take place. If such attosecond information is achieved it will be possible to approach very high-speed information transfer and why not studying how information can be artificially encoded (molecular electronics) or present (traces of cancers) in biological sample, a kind of bio computing?This research will give birth to a new type of Physics that will bridge the gap between many sciences. The technical challenges under this research area are leading international efforts in laser development that will have a huge impact on technological applications also in industry (electronic, communication), medicine technologies (Magnetic Resonance Imaging, proton therapy, pharmacology).Therefore I developed a research based on tools to observe and control the intra- atomic and intra-molecular electrons and nuclei motions. To capture this dynamics at the origin of any chemical or biological reactions, one has to capture snapshots of the system evolving, exactly as a camera will do. Unfortunately there is no such detector, but what is possible is to find a process observable, that can be affected by these changes and so that will carry the fingerprint of these changes. The ideal candidate for this is light, because emission of photons is highly sensitive to any changes, it is a fast process and it can be observable by looking at spectra (frequency equivalent to its colour). The process I choose is high-order harmonic generation (HHG) that occurs within 10's attosec to few fsec (appropriate time window). It occurs while an intense and short laser pulse interacts with an atom or a molecule. During this interaction, an electron is ionised (extract from the core), and follow a certain trajectory before coming back to the core where it can be recaptured, exactly as a returning boomerang. The excess kinetic energy the electron has acquired during its travel will be spent by the system (final atom or molecule) emitting a new photon which frequency (colour) will be an odd harmonic of the fundamental photon (the laser photon). These harmonic photons can be measured accurately so if a change in the core occurs during the electron travel, the characteristic of the photons emitted will be modified. I have been working in the study of high order harmonic and in particular in the understanding of electron trajectories during the process. I demonstrated experimentally that the ionised electron can not only follow one trajectory but many, giving rise to my technique of investigation called Quantum-Path Interferences first demonstrated in atoms. I will use this technique under different conditions to extract the information on charge migration in molecules within the attosecond timescale.

Characterising and monitoring terrestrial or land surface features like forests, deserts and cities are fundamental and continuing goals of Earth Observation (EO). EO imagery and related technology is essential to understand environmental processes like carbon capture and manage environmental resources like tropical forests, particularly over large areas or the entire globe. This measurement or observation of some property of the land surface is central to a wide range of scientific investigations and industrial operations, involving individuals and organisations from many different backgrounds and disciplines. However, this process of observing the land provides a unifying theme for these investigations, and in practice there is much consistency in the instruments used for observation and the techniques used to map and model the environmental subject. There is therefore great potential benefit in exchanging technological knowledge and experience among the many and diverse members of the terrestrial EO community. The aim of the cluster is to exchange knowledge and facilitate understanding, development and uptake of state-of-the-art technology used in EO of the land surface. This will include consideration of the full range of terrestrial EO operation, from platform and sensor development, to image retrieval and analysis, environmental modelling and thematic application. The 'terrestrial' focus is deliberately broad to ensure wide relevance across and engagement from the whole community, involving both research and industry. However, to guarantee specific technological advancement and achievement, priority areas or themes will be identified for detailed investigation. While these themes will be determined ultimately through consultation with the EO community, prospective themes include the operation of autonomous aerial vehicles in land observation, development of novel land classification approaches and application of EO to threatened environments such as peatlands. The consultative process ensures the cluster's activities are guided by and effectively represent the community's interests. The themes will operate in close communication with each other to ensure cross-fertilisation of knowledge and contribution to overall cluster goals. Cluster activities will include the development of various networking mechanisms to bring together all parties interested in terrestrial EO technology. Central to this will be an interactive website, where news and updates will be posted regularly and participants can share resources. Various cluster events will be held, including scientific workshops and commercial demonstrations in the first year, and a major conference and gadget show in the second year to be held at the National Space Centre. Cluster activities will yield a range of scientific, technical and general interest publications. Theme events will be supported with workbooks and abstract booklets, and theme coordinators will be encouraged to organise journal special issues. An edited volume will also be published on Future Terrestrial Earth Observation Technology to outline state-of-the-art technology and signpost future development. To guarantee benefits across the whole terrestrial EO community, the cluster will be organised by a consortium representing a wide range of interests. At the heart of this consortium are three umbrella bodies covering research and higher education (the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society), industry (the British Association of Remote Sensing Companies) and existing EO activities at the Natural Environment Research Council (the National Centre for Earth Observation). Together, these bodies represent hundreds of organisations and thousands of researchers, developers and users of EO technology. Researchers will benefit through the development of strategic collaborations, NERC will benefit through guidance on technology policy and commercial organisations will benefit through user feedback.