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Meet the Team

  Dr Ben Green leads a research group in the Physics Department. He did his undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Warwick, before working at Element Six for two years. Having subsequently moved back into academia as a postdoc in the NQIT quantum hub, Ben is currently a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow. His research covers fundamental understanding of point defects and their properties in diamond, to fabrication of materials and devices which exploit those defects. He is the academic lead for WP1.
  Dr Ben Breeze studied Physics at Nottingham Trent University and the Open University as part of their 2 & 2 programme before coming to Warwick to complete a PhD on defects in diamond. Prior to this he had worked in various industries including an electronics design company where he was involved with 3D modelling and testing of the products. Ben is Manager of the Spectroscopy Research Technology Platform and supports spectroscopic materials characterisation.
  Callum Crockford joined as a PhD student in October 2022 after completing a MChem degree at the University of Warwick. Callum is using electron paramagnetic resonance to study electrochemically generated hydroxyl radicals in-situ to investigate the mechanisms of electrochemical oxidation and evaluate the performance of boron doped diamond against other electrode materials. Callum is also studying the mechanisms by which radicals corrode boron doped diamond, and their potential applications in etching and chemical-mechanical polishing.
  Laura Duran-Fervenza is a new PhD student (started October 2022) who studied undergraduate physics at the University of Warwick. Her PhD project is on nitrogen vacancy centre arrays (scalable optical qubit system) in diamond. For this she will prepare and characterise diamond membranes with laser-written wires to deliver microwaves to different sites in the diamond. Placing these membranes into optical cavities will facilitate optical entanglement of qubits with long coherence times. The new, arbitrary waveform generator will be used for qubit control.
  Dr Andrew Edmonds is a Principal Scientist in the R&D group at the E6 Global Innovation Centre, Harwell. He has over 15 years of experience in diamond defect physics (PhD and Post-Doc Warwick, Research Fellow Macquarie University, Sydney) and synthesis, across both academia and industry. He joined E6 in 2013 and is currently working on projects focusing on optimisation of CVD diamond synthesis for quantum-sensing applications as well as supporting Prosperity Partnership. He has 28 peer-reviewed publications and 6 granted patents.
  Dr Daniel Field is the PDRA associated with WP 3. He graduated from the University of Bristol with a MSci in chemistry in 2017, joined the EPSRC DST CDT and completed PhD (thermal and mechanical properties of GaN-on-diamond) at the Centre for Device Reliability and Thermography at the University of Bristol with Prof. Martin Kuball. In this project he has developed diamond microfabrication processes, led the work on metallisation of diamond and surface structuring.
  Imogen Gullick did her undergraduate degree at Keele University and joined Warwick in 2019 to study for a PhD. Her research involves the fabrication of single-crystal diamond membranes containing functional defects using ion-implantation and electro-chemical etching, as well as the use of spectroscopic techniques to characterize the membranes and the functional defects within them. Imogen has worked on developing ICP reactive-ion-etching process for diamond.
  Dr Ralph Hall obtained a BSc in Physics from the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD in opto-electrical characterization of transition metals in wide gap semiconductors at St Andrews. Ralph has a wide range of generic semiconductor research skills obtained from more than 30 years’ experience of materials and device research in academia and industry. Ralph is the PDRA on WP1 and primarily based at E6, Harwell where is developing growth processes for low strain large area diamond and contributing to the characterisation the resulting material.
  Dr Claire Hurley joined Warwick in 2014 from Sheffield University. In addition to leading DST CDT teaching Claire leads on surface characterisation and runs our laser machining facility consists of two Oxford Lasers systems: the E-Series (34 ns, 355 nm Nd:YAG) and the A-Series (15 ns, 532 nm Nd:YAG), both fitted with high-resolution CNC stages. These systems are capable of drilling, cutting and milling a wide variety of materials with high precision. Macro/micrometre scale features can be machined in metals, plastics, composites, wafers, diamond.
  Prof Julie Macpherson has a PhD in Electrochemistry from the University of Warwick. She held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship from 1999-2007 in the area of electrochemical imaging and in 2007 was promoted to a Chair in Warwick Chemistry. She has actively worked in the area of boron doped diamond (BDD) for electrochemical applications since 2010, and in 2014 secured a Royal Society Industry Fellowship with E6 to explore exploitation routes for BDD material. In 2017 she was awarded the Royal Society Innovation award for her work in the area of BDD electrochemical sensors focused on the water industry. Julie is the WP2 theme lead.
  Dr Matthew Markham is a Principal Scientist leading E6’s Diamond Quantum Technologies program. Matthew received his master’s degree in physics in 2002, and a PhD in nanostructured semiconductors in 2006, both from the University of Southampton. He joined E6 in 2007 and has worked on a range of projects including fundamental diamond synthesis, diamond power electronics and diamond quantum technologies. He has culminated over 15 patents and 50 academic papers in the field of quantum technologies.
  Prof Phil Mawby joined the University of Warwick in 2005 having spent 19 years at the Swansea University. He has an international reputation in the area of power electronics and power device research. His main interests are materials for new power devices, modelling of power devices and circuits. He has also worked on development of device simulation algorithms, as well as optoelectronic and quantum-based device structures. Phil graduated from the University of Leeds and obtained his PhD from the same institution in 1986, where he studied GaAs/AlGaAs Heterojunction bipolar transistors for high power radio frequency applications.
  Dr Tim Mollart is a principal application Engineer and the product manager for Electronic Materials at E6. With a BSc in Applied Physics & Electronics and a PhD in Physics from Durham University he has over 25 years' experience in diamond science and technology, with over 25 publications and 35 patent families in a diverse range of topics, from infrared optics, CVD diamond growth, thermal management, electronic and electrochemical applications of boron doped diamond. He brings to the project skills in translating R&D into commercial products bridging the gap from a materials supplier to OEM companies.
  Dr Gavin Morley leads a research group in the Warwick University Physics Department. He did an undergraduate degree and a PhD in Physics at Oxford University. He has held fellowships from the 1851 Royal Commission and the Royal Society, as well as being supported by two of the UK Quantum Technology Hubs. His research group builds quantum experiments and technologies based on nitrogen vacancy colour centres in diamond. This includes magnetometry, quantum computing chips and an experiment with a levitated nanodiamond which aims to put the nanodiamond into a spatial quantum superposition. Gavin is the lead for WP3.
  Chloe Newsom was awarded an MPhys from the University of Warwick (2019) and stayed on to work for a PhD, funded by E6. Her research focuses on the creation and diffusion (utilizing perturbations such as stress) of technologically important defects in diamond, and characterization of the environments in which they reside. This includes irradiation at a range of different temperatures using a transmission electron microscope, annealing and spectroscopic characterisation. She is also using confocal Raman for imaging and measuring strain in diamond.
  Prof Mark Newton completed an BSc in Physics at Warwick and a DPhil in Oxford. He worked as a research fellow in the USA and held academic positions in Oxford and King’s College London before returning to Warwick in 2002. His research focuses on; (i) understanding, controlling and exploiting the properties of colour centres in diamond; (ii) developing sensors that exploit the extreme and unique combination of properties offered by diamond, and (iii) developing new spectroscopic techniques. He is currently Director of EPSRC CDT in DST, Head of the Warwick Department of Physics and PI on this Prosperity Partnership Project.
  Nicola Palmer is a Senior Scientist at E6 with over 10 years’ experience in diamond synthesis. After graduating from Nottingham University with a Chemistry MSci she worked in the polymer industry before moving to E6. Nicola has worked on several projects from low TRL research to production. Nicola has worked on electrochemistry, GaN on diamond, quantum and chemical leaching of oil and gas cutters. She is the industrial WP1 lead and overall lead of the project for E6.
  George Pryer Freeman obtained a MChem from the University of Warwick and started a PhD in diamond materials and electrochemistry in October 2022. This work will feed into WP2. George is currently researching into the effect of annealing and diamond surface structure on the tri-layer of titanium-platinum-gold ohmic contact on boron doped diamond. Ultimately, building on this work he will fabricate photoconductive intrinsic single crystal diamond structures and assess their feasibility as photo-activated electrodes for electrochemistry.
  Stephen Smith started his PhD in October 2022, after studying for a MPhys degree at the University of Warwick. In his PhD he will develop novel electronic- and optical spectroscopies in order to study and subsequently control the properties of technologically useful defects in diamond. He will develop optical and electronic qubit readout and bias protocols, in conjunction with precise control of surface properties and implantation of suitable elements. Stephen is also key in the Warwick-based characterisation of novel material produced in WP1.
  Dr Joshua Tully graduated with an MChem in 2018 and a PhD (Royal Society funded) in 2022, both from the University of Warwick. During his PhD Josh’s research efforts centred around the processing and utilisation of lab grown diamond for a variety of electrochemical and sensing applications, utilising advanced laser micromachining and 3D printing. Josh is the PDRA associated with WP 2 and so far, has been focusing on developing and testing packaging methods for Boron Doped Diamond macroelectrodes and designing and building a Chemical Mechanical Polishing bench.
  Dr Daniel Twitchen completed an undergraduate degree in Physics and DPhil in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Oxford. Dan is a member UK’s National Quantum Technology Program’s Strategic Advisory Board. He is Chief Technologist of E6 at E6 and has more than 20 years of experience in diamond synthesis R&D, project management and product development, is an inventor on >50 patents, and has co-authored >150 scientific papers.
  Dr Jiahui (Gloria) Zhao is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow funded by the University of Warwick. Gloria has undergraduate and master’s degrees from the China University of Geosciences and Warwick (Diamond Science and Technology). She completed her Warwick PhD on long-lived luminescence in 2022, and now specializes in microscopic & spectroscopic characterization of defect properties in wide band gap materials, and the design, development and application of new tools for these studies.