On 21st Sep 2025, our PhD student Yahya passed his viva! Thanks to all group members and examiners! Well done Dr Yahya Saboon!

On 4th September 2025, our PhD student Dan Johnson passed his PhD viva, congratulations to Dan! Thanks to his internal examiner Prof Richard Curry and external examiner Prof Benedict Murdin.

Jess, Xinyun and Ying went to IRMMW-THz this year, held in Aalto University, Finland. Here are the topics of their talks: Jess (on behalf on Yahya) “Unveiling Time-resolved Optoelectronic Properties Of 3D Dirac Bi2Te3 TI Thin Film Via Ultrafast OPTP Spectroscopy“ Xinyun “Mapping the Temperature Dependent Surface States of Bi2Te3 Topological Insulator Flakes by Ultra-cryogenic…

George is a Research Associate working on the EPSRC project Direct Writing of Nanodevices: A Sustainable Route to Nanofabrication. This project seeks to demonstrate a new, sustainable and cost-effective method for producing the electronic devices that underpin today’s society. The method is based on the decomposition of molecular precursors into semiconductors under ion beams. His…

On 8th July 2025, Xinyun graduated as the first PhD in our group! After her PhD journey, she will stay in the group as a postdoc researcher, keep using s-SNOM and ultrafast THz spectroscopy to discover amazing materials like topological insulators and ion-implanted samples.

Jess and Ying went to Marburg last week to attend the Optical Terahertz Science and Technology (OTST) 2024! Ying presented a poster on her terahertz spectroscopy work on zinc phosphide thin films for solar cell applications. Jess gave an invited talk on terahertz spectroscopy and microscopy of topological materials! We had a great time networking…

On 12nd Oct 2023, we hosted the launch event with National Physics Laboratory (NPL) for our brand new s-SNOM. This s-SNOM adds the capability for imaging quantum materials in nanoscale resolution under visible light. During the launch event, Prof Richard Curry (Vice-Dean for Research and Innovation, University of Manchester) and Dr Peter Thompson (CEO of…

Our PhD student Dan Johnson took part in Word Snooker Championship back in July 2023! We are trying our best not only on research but also on sports!

Our PhD student Xinyun Liu won Seah Prize for “best combined presentation and poster in the field of surface analysis” at UK Surface Analysis Forum (UKSAF) Summer Meeting held in Leeds, July 2023. Her poster and presentation are titled “Exploiting Scattering Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (s-SNOM) for Nanoparticle Analysis”.

Our PhD student Yinghong Huang won 2nd prize for her 3 minutes flash talk at UK Semiconductor Conference July, 2023! Her talk is titled “Investigating the Effect of Crystal Morphology on Optoelectronic Properties of Zinc Phosphide Thin Films via Optical-Pump Terahertz-Probe Spectroscopy”.