The Group
Prof Ioannis Papakonstantinou - Professor of Photonics and Nanofabrication
Dr Tao Li - Postdoctorate Researcher
Dr. Li’s research field is in nanotechnology, with interdisciplinary efforts extended to material science and nanofabrication technique. He joined the group since June. 2016 for moth-eye smart windows project after earning his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). He received his M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering (2010) from University of California at Riverside, USA and received his B.Sc. degree in Pharmaceutical Science (2008) from the Tianjin University, China. Previously he has successfully addressed several topics, including: block copolymer lithography, porous materials and membrane separation process. Current research interests include developing large-scale and cost-effective nano-fabrication methods for smart coatings.
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Dr Gurunatha Kargal - Postdoctorate Researcher
Guru's research interest is in the fabrication of nanomaterials for plasmonic and nanophotonic devices. He received his PhD in Colloidal Chemistry from University of Toulouse (France) under the supervision of Dr. Erik Dujardin. His thesis work mainly explores Bio-inspired strategies for the synthesis and self-assembly of plasmonic nanoparticles. Before joining the group in Feb 2018 Gurunath worked as a postdoctoral researcher at University of California SanDiego (USA) and University of Victoria (Canada) in the field of Plasmonic metamaterials and Single molecule Bio-sensing by optical trapping. Currently his work is focused on the synthesis of VO2 nanoparticles, thin-films for smart window applications and the modification of surface functionalities.
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Dr Francisco Ramirez - Postdoctorate Researcher
Francisco’s research interest is in computational modeling applied to nanophotonic control of thermal radiation for energy applications. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (USA) under the supervision of Dr. Alan J.H. McGaughey. His thesis work focused in plasmonic hybridization phenomena applied to enhanced near and far field thermal radiation in graphene nanostructures, and plasmon-induced hot-carrier generation in noble metal nanoparticle dimers. He received his B Sc. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile. He joined the Photonics Innovations Lab in September, 2018 to work on vanadium dioxide based devices for thermal management.
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Dr Paul Haigh - Senior Research Associate
Paul Anthony Haigh was awarded the PhD degree in the area of optical wireless communications from Northumbria University in 2014, including 13 articles in world class journals such as IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, OSA Optics Express, IEEE Communications Magazine and IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology. Paul is currently a Senior Research Associate at University College London (UCL) developing innovative digital signal processing solutions, circuit designs and advanced modulation formats for integration of polymer opto-electronic devices into highly parallel visible light communications systems as part of the EPSRC MARVEL project. Paul was previously a member of the High Performance Networks group at the University of Bristol from 2014-2016, where he was the lead researcher on the EPSRC TOUCAN project focused on ubiquitous multi-technology networks. Paul was also a Marie Curie Fellow at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) from 2010-2011, designing radiation-hard onto-electronic links for LHC data read-out.
e-mail: 
Dr Jietao Liu - Visiting Professor
Jietao Liu is an associate professor in School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Xidian University, China. He joined the Photonics Innovations Lab (Pi-lab) in October, 2018 to work as a visiting researcher towards vanadium dioxide based metasurface devices for dynamic light manipulation.
He received his BS for Applied Physics from the Department of Science, Northwestern Polytechnology University (NWPU), Xi'an, China, in 2009. From 2009 to 2014, he worked as a research assistant and received his PhD for Physical Electronics on research of plasmonic waveguide theory and subwavelength nanostructure properties for electromagnetic-induced-transparency and sensing in the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). His current research interests include nanophotonics, metasurface, optical scattering and imaging.
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Sophia Laney - PhD Student
Sophia completed her undergraduate degree in July 2017 at the University of Bristol where she obtained an MSci in Chemistry. During her third year she completed a placement year at Schlumberger Gould research centre where she was developing alternative filler materials for marine seismic streamers. Her research was focussed on preparing styrenic block copolymer gels and characterizing their flow behaviour through rheology. During her final year masters project, she was working under the supervision of professor Ian Manners on a project involving the synthesis and self-assembly of polyferrocenylsilane (PFS) containing block copolymers into non-spherical micelle morphologies. In September 2017 Sophia joined the group and is currently working on a new class of smart nanoengineered surfaces for passive, energy efficient manipulation of liquid repellency, water condensation, ice-nucleation and optical properties.
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Radhika Poduval - PhD Student
Radhika joined the group in October 2015 after completing a joint degree Masters in Biomedical engineering with distinction. During the first year of her masters (Trinity College Dublin) she worked on investigation of corticomuscular coherence changes due to Cancer-related fatigue (using EEG and EMG for simultaneous analysis of electrophysiological signals from the brain and skeletal muscles). She was at Ghent University and VUB for the second year, where she worked on her thesis project designing flexible electronic circuits for smart contact lens applications (imec Leuven, and CMST, Ghent, Belgium).
She is currently working on developing optical fiber probes for ultrasound imaging and other applications relevant to minimally invasive surgery.
e-mail: 
Mark Portnoi - PhD Student
Mark completed his undergraduate degrees here at Electronic and Electrical Engineering, UCL, from which he graduated with first class honours in 2015. During the last year of this programme he joined the group for both a summer project and a final year project, developing a Monte Carlo methods ray tracing programme in C++, for use in the modelling of Luminescent Solar Concentrators. In September 2015 he re-joined the group as a PhD student, on an EPSRC funded studentship, working towards improving the efficiency of Luminescent Solar Concentrators, including modelling of, fabrication and characterisation of the devices.
e-mail: 
Christian Sol - PhD Student
Christian completed his undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Leeds in 2014. He then went on to join the UCL-Cambridge Centre for Doctoral Training in Integrated Photonic and Electronic Systems, where he undertook MRes projects in both the Cavendish Terahertz Quantum Cascade Laser research group in Cambridge, and the Photonic Innovations Lab at UCL. He is currently working towards a PhD in the development of thermochromic smart windows based on the switching properties of vanadium dioxide. Specifically, Christian is involved in the simulation and characterisation of vanadium dioxide based smart windows along with the scalable fabrication of nanostructures with anti-reflective and hydrophobic properties.
e-mail: 
Nick Salaris - PhD Student
Nick completed his undergraduate degree in July 2016 at King's College London where he obtained a MSci in physics. During the third year he was a part of a project involving the building of a miniature LIGO model and in the fourth year,under the supervision of Dr Cedric Weber, focused on the simulation of electron transport properties towards high temperature superconductors.In September 2017 he joined the UCL-Cambridge joint CDT program in integrated electronic and photonic systems funded by the ESPRC. In September 2018, after completing the MRes part of the CDT, joined this group and is currently working on miniaturized oxygen sensors.
e-mail: 
Isil Top - Visiting PhD Student
Işıl received her B.Sc. degree at materials science and engineering, and chemistry minor degree from Sabanci University, Istanbul (Turkey). During her undergraduate studies she took part in research at University of Cambridge as a visiting researcher to work on functional metal oxides. After this, she has started to her PhD studies at Queen Mary University of London, in School of Engineering and Materials Science, under the supervision of Dr. Russell Binions and Dr. Isaac Abrahams. Her PhD work focuses on thermochromic vanadium dioxide thin films produced by electric field assisted AACVD as well as production of bilayer films from various metal oxides. Her current interest lies on synthesis of core-shell nanostructured thin films for energy efficient window applications.
