The first viable large scale fuel cell systems were the liquid electrolyte alkaline fuel cells developed by Francis Bacon. Until recently the entire space shuttle fleet was powered by such fuel cells. The main difficulties with these fuel cells surrounded the liquid electrolyte, which was difficult to immobilise and suffers from problems due to the formation of low solubility carbonate species. Subsequent material developments led to the introduction of proton-exchange membranes (PEMs e.g. Nafion(r)) and the development of the well-known PEMFC. Cost is a major inhibitor to commercial uptake of PEMFCs and is localised on 3 critical components: (1) Pt catalysts (loadings still high despite considerable R&D); (2) the PEMs; and (3) bipolar plate materials (there are few inexpensive materials which survive contact with Nafion, a superacid). Water balance within PEMFCs is difficult to optimise due to electro-osmotic drag. Finally, PEM-based direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) exhibit reduced performances due to migration of methanol to the cathode (voltage losses and wasted fuel).Recent advances in materials science and chemistry has allowed the production of membrane materials and ionomers which would allow the development of the alkaline-equivalent to PEMs. The application of these alkaline anion-exchange membranes (AAEMs) promises a quantum leap in fuel cell viability. The applicant team contains the world-leaders in the development of this innovative technology. Such fuel cells (conduction of OH- anions rather than protons) offer a number of significant advantages:(1) Catalysis of fuel cell reactions is faster under alkaline conditions than acidic conditions - indeed non-platinum catalysts perform very favourably in this environment e.g. Ag for oxygen reduction.(2) Many more materials show corrosion resistance in alkaline than in acid environments. This increases the number and chemistry of materials which can be used (including cheap, easy stamped and thin metal bipolar plate materials).(3) Non-fluorinated ionomers are feasible and promise significant membrane cost reductions.(4) Water and ionic transport within the OH-anion conducting electrolytes is favourable electroosmotic drag transports water away from the cathode (preventing flooding on the cathode, a major issue with PEMFCs and DMFCs). This process also mitigates the 'crossover' problem in DMFCs.This research programme involves the development of a suite of materials and technology necessary to implement the alkaline polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (APEMFC). This research will be performed by a consortium of world leading materials scientists, chemists and engineers, based at Imperial College London, Cranfield University, University of Newcastle and the University of Surrey. This team, which represents one of the best that can be assembled to undertake such research, embodies a multiscale understanding on experimental and theoretical levels of all aspects of fuel cell systems, from fundamental electrocatalysis to the stack level, including diagnostic approaches to assess those systems. The research groups have already explored some aspects of APEMFCs and this project will undertake the development of each aspect of the new technology in an integrated, multi-pronged approach whilst communicating their ongoing results to the members of a club of relevant industrial partners. The extensive opportunities for discipline hopping and international-level collaborations will be fully embraced. The overall aim is to develop membrane materials, catalysts and ionomers for APEMFCs and to construct and operate such fuel cells utilising platinum-free electrocatalysts. The proposed programme of work is adventurous: however, risks have been carefully assessed alongside suitable mitigation strategies (the high risk components promise high returns but have few dependencies). Success will lead to the U.K. pioneering a new class of clean energy conversion technology.

This Pump-Priming proposal builds specifically on our NERC research in tropical forests, as well as other NERC and RCUK funding, to develop a new collaboration with a leading Chinese research group (led by Prof Yu at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou) to generate outstanding research on how plant-soil feedbacks mediate seedling establishment and tree diversity in sub-tropical forests. Our proposal takes advantage of Prof Yu's high-impact research findings on tree seedling recruitment with our own mechanistic approaches used to understand the ecology of mycorrhizal fungi, which are globally prevalent and key symbionts in these forests. The proposal will enable PI-researcher exchanges to design field experiments, first, to interrogate existing datasets on plant community composition and soil properties, and second, to devise field experiments to test in situ ideas developed previously either in pot-based experiments, or in grassland. Specifically, we will use unique field experimental facilities and data made available by Prof Yu to test how mycorrhizal type and mycorrhizal fungal hyphal networks facilitate seedling establishment. Moreover, integration of field experiments with existing unique datasets on soil and plant properties (led by Prof Yu), together with application of cutting-edge isotope tracers (led by Prof Johnson) will make a step-change in understanding how soil biota influences seedling establishment in realistic conditions. The Pump Priming proposal will provide the ground-work for development of new collaborative research proposals, as well as generating exciting new synthetic datasets and outputs. The durability of the collaboration will be aided immediately by significant investment from our partners, including allocation of Chinese-funded research studentships to further develop our findings and ensure continuity beyond the lifetime of the proposal.

Analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) are the essential links between physical world in which all signals are 'analogue' (e.g., electric current generated by a microphone or a picture captured by a mobile phone camera) and the digital world of '0s' and '1s', where we store, transmit and process signals and information. ADCs enable (digital) computers to process signals from the (analogue) physical world. This capability has revolutionised our entire society, making computers (desk-tops, lap-tops, or smartphones) ubiquitous. In recent years, we have witnessed a dramatic increase of the amount of information that is generated, stored, transmitted, and processed, driven by increased demand of our society on data and information and newly emerging applications such as virtual and augmented reality. All this information needs to be processed by ADCs, which can address the abovementioned need only when performing with better accuracy, affordable power consumption, in real-time (with low latency), and for increasingly broader bandwidth (faster) signals. This is extremely challenging with currently-existing technologies and is being vigorously pursued by both academia and industry. Most of these approaches are based on strategies like the use of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), photonic time stretch, or time interleaving. Unfortunately, all of these approaches seem to have formidable challenges. A clearly realisable route to next-generation ADCs that could support information growth in the next decade and beyond is currently lacking. ORBITS aims to provide a radically novel and future-growth-proof solution to ADCs using optical assisted means. Specifically, it will exploit unique features of recently-emerged optical and photonics technologies, including optical frequency combs, coherent optical processing, and precise optical phase control. Optics offers three orders of magnitude larger bandwidth than microwave electronics used for ADCs today and has the advantages of ultrafast (femtosecond level) responses. The optical frequency comb technologies, in conjunction with coherent optical processing and phase control, enables dividing signal with high accuracy in the optical domain, which overcomes the fundamental limits such as timing jitter (time uncertainty) in conventional approaches, opening up a scalable and integratable technology for large bandwidth high resolution ADCs. For practical (low-cost when volume-manufactured, compact, and low-power-consuming) implementation, ORBITS will investigate optical and electronic integration, which permit to harness merits across different photonics integration platforms, through collaborations and open foundries. Besides next-generation ADCs, ORBITS will study applications in future-proof high capacity optical and wireless communications. It assembles complementary expertise from top research groups in Universities and companies, aiming for a wide academic impact and a straightforward knowledge transfer to industry.

The first viable large scale fuel cell systems were the liquid electrolyte alkaline fuel cells developed by Francis Bacon. Until recently the entire space shuttle fleet was powered by such fuel cells. The main difficulties with these fuel cells surrounded the liquid electrolyte, which was difficult to immobilise and suffers from problems due to the formation of low solubility carbonate species. Subsequent material developments led to the introduction of proton-exchange membranes (PEMs e.g. Nafion(r)) and the development of the well-known PEMFC. Cost is a major inhibitor to commercial uptake of PEMFCs and is localised on 3 critical components: (1) Pt catalysts (loadings still high despite considerable R&D); (2) the PEMs; and (3) bipolar plate materials (there are few inexpensive materials which survive contact with Nafion, a superacid). Water balance within PEMFCs is difficult to optimise due to electro-osmotic drag. Finally, PEM-based direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) exhibit reduced performances due to migration of methanol to the cathode (voltage losses and wasted fuel).Recent advances in materials science and chemistry has allowed the production of membrane materials and ionomers which would allow the development of the alkaline-equivalent to PEMs. The application of these alkaline anion-exchange membranes (AAEMs) promises a quantum leap in fuel cell viability. The applicant team contains the world-leaders in the development of this innovative technology. Such fuel cells (conduction of OH- anions rather than protons) offer a number of significant advantages:(1) Catalysis of fuel cell reactions is faster under alkaline conditions than acidic conditions - indeed non-platinum catalysts perform very favourably in this environment e.g. Ag for oxygen reduction.(2) Many more materials show corrosion resistance in alkaline than in acid environments. This increases the number and chemistry of materials which can be used (including cheap, easy stamped and thin metal bipolar plate materials).(3) Non-fluorinated ionomers are feasible and promise significant membrane cost reductions.(4) Water and ionic transport within the OH-anion conducting electrolytes is favourable electroosmotic drag transports water away from the cathode (preventing flooding on the cathode, a major issue with PEMFCs and DMFCs). This process also mitigates the 'crossover' problem in DMFCs.This research programme involves the development of a suite of materials and technology necessary to implement the alkaline polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (APEMFC). This research will be performed by a consortium of world leading materials scientists, chemists and engineers, based at Imperial College London, Cranfield University, University of Newcastle and the University of Surrey. This team, which represents one of the best that can be assembled to undertake such research, embodies a multiscale understanding on experimental and theoretical levels of all aspects of fuel cell systems, from fundamental electrocatalysis to the stack level, including diagnostic approaches to assess those systems. The research groups have already explored some aspects of APEMFCs and this project will undertake the development of each aspect of the new technology in an integrated, multi-pronged approach whilst communicating their ongoing results to the members of a club of relevant industrial partners. The extensive opportunities for discipline hopping and international-level collaborations will be fully embraced. The overall aim is to develop membrane materials, catalysts and ionomers for APEMFCs and to construct and operate such fuel cells utilising platinum-free electrocatalysts. The proposed programme of work is adventurous: however, risks have been carefully assessed alongside suitable mitigation strategies (the high risk components promise high returns but have few dependencies). Success will lead to the U.K. pioneering a new class of clean energy conversion technology.

Optical frequency comb is a light source that can be pictured as a comb of light, where each tooth represents a different colour (frequency) of light. Originally developed to measure optical frequencies as an ultra-precise frequency 'ruler', this new type of light source has emerged as a transformative tool for many scientific and engineering fields. They enable precise distance measurement and fast data transmission, crucial for future ultra-fast internet connectivity, wireless device positioning, and medical diagnostics. However, the existing frequency comb technologies have limitations. The predominant existing technologies are not easily adjustable, producing predetermined shapes of light pulses and spectra, limiting their applications and flexibility. Moreover, they are challenging to deploy in practical, variable environments such as on mobile and satellite terminals due to their size and sensitivity to temperature fluctuations. The first objective of this fellowship is to address these challenges by creating new types of frequency comb sources that are adjustable, stable, compact, and can work in a wide range of environments and temperatures, which has not been achieved with existing technologies. In addition to the development of these new comb sources, the fellowship will also explore and demonstrate their applications in telecommunication technologies by increasing telecommunications network data capacity and by enabling more precise clock and time synchronisation. The above objectives will be achieved by significantly developing the concepts formulated by the fellow through a synergy of expertise in photonic integrated circuits, nonlinear optics, RF electronics, signal design and control. The goal of this fellowship is to validate the proposed techniques by developing prototype hardware, with which experimental trials will be performed in real-world environments. The fellowship research outcomes could advance communications, medical imaging, and broader potential in precision manufacturing and astronomy. The development of this new light source technology and associated technologies align with the UK's strategy to lead in telecommunications and healthcare innovation. The outcomes will benefit researchers, healthcare professionals and suppliers by providing insights and advancements in photonics and communications technologies. The ultimate beneficiary will be the public, who will gain better digital infrastructure and healthcare services. The new techniques will enable faster Internet and future society-transformative applications such as connected car fleets and autonomous drone swarms. They will advance medical imaging techniques, allowing for non-invasive, non-ionising, in-vivo diagnostic imaging with deeper penetration than existing technologies. This fellowship answers the growing demand for state-of-the-art but practical frequency comb technologies, driven by the need for highly precise sensing and higher data rates in various fields like medical diagnostics and telecommunications. It aims to benefit a wide range of end users and audiences, including academic researchers in the telecom and medical sectors, component suppliers and vendors, equipment vendors and network operators, healthcare professionals and patients, as well as policymakers and government agencies. In conclusion, this fellowship aims to demonstrate a new, highly flexible, and practical optical frequency comb tool that promises advancements in telecommunications, medical imaging, and various scientific applications, positioning the UK as a leader in these cutting-edge technologies.