Cardiff School of Engineering

Introduction

Materials forms one of the Cardiff School of Engineering’s four main cross-cutting interdisciplinary research themes. Materials research in the School covers a wide range of activities from the nano- to the macro- scale, including state-of-the-art techniques and facilities for:

Deposition  (e.g. thin films of new electronic and magnetic materials by pulsed laser ablation)

Micromachining (e.g. femtosecond laser etching of microfluidic circuits)

Characterisation (e.g. new types of thermoelectric materials)

Theory and Modelling (e.g. mechanical properties of nanostructured composites)

Non-destructive Testing (e.g. acoustic emission of aerospace components, microwave spectroscopy)

Applications (e.g. textured insulators for high voltage systems, new types of orthopaedic implants).

The Materials theme group is made up of about a quarter of the School’s staff, emphasising the underlying importance of materials research, and has been established to provide a both a forum and focus for these activities.

Staff are currently engaged on research projects in the Materials area with a wide range of multinational companies, such as Tata Steel, Airbus, Qinetiq and Merck. A directory of staff expertise in the Materials area is available on request.