Research in the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre is highly interdisciplinary, focused around common interests in the fabrication and characterisation technology in the cleanroom. The activities are broad, covering novel methods and materials and applying them to the innovation of both the design and architecture of devices and systems. The development of new nanofabrication techniques is a central component of our research and our strategy is to concentrate primarily on both top-down and bottom-up nanofabrication techniques. The development of low cost nanofabrication techniques is an important theme of our research, as cost is a key inhibitor for the commercialisation of technologies such as photovoltaics, microsystems and point-of-care healthcare systems, where we have developed thin film and polymer technologies.
There are many inter-disciplinary research collaborations within the Centre, for example with the new Institute for Life Science in the University looking at biosensing and lab-on-a-chip technologies; with the prestigious National Oceanography Centre on environmental sensing, the Optoelectronics Research Centre on photonic metamaterials, the Schools of Physics and Chemistry in the areas of nanomaterials and the School of Engineering Sciences in the area of microsystems.
Researchers are encouraged to participate in using and running the cleanroom and a number of research groups from across the University are actively participating in the Nanofabrication Centre.
