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THz frequency (300GHz to 1THz) radiation sources are used in a number of diverse applications such as radars, the study of the fundamental properties of materials, security imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, plasma diagnostics, medical imaging and chemical sensing. The power that can be generated from 'bench top' free electron radiation sources in the hundreds of GHz to THz frequency range has been limited by the fact that as the frequency is increased, the size of the interaction region has to be reduced in order to prevent the maser becoming overmoded which results in a loss of the temporal or spatial coherence of the output radiation. As the frequency increases it becomes increasingly difficult (if not impossible) using conventional thermionic cathodes to focus and form high current density, high quality electron beams through the small size interaction region of the THz maser. A pseudospark plasma cathode can overcome current density limitations imposed by thermionic emission as well as being able to generate a sheet electron beam without the need to use an external magnetic field. A psuedospark-sourced sheet electron beam will be used to power a planar Extended Interaction Klystron Amplifier (EIKA) which is extended in one direction as compared to conventional EIKAs based on a cylindrical electron beam produced by a thermionic cathode. A 12mW, 365GHz signal generated by a solid state source will amplified to 100W by the Pseudospark Sheet beam planar Extended Interaction Klystron Amplifier (PS-EIKA). As no guide magnetic field is required the PS-EIKA will be compact, reliable, robust and can generate 100ns duration pulses at high (kHz) pulse repetition frequencies. In addition a pseudospark source sheet electron beam will be used to drive a planar Extended Interaction Oscillator (EIKO) to generate 10W of output power at 1THz. The proposed research will be conducted jointly by two leading research groups in microwave device engineering with complementary expertise, in Univ. of Strathclyde and QMUL. Knowledge of pseudospark Extended Interaction Klystron amplifier (PS-EIKA) and oscillator design and construction will be transferred to our Project Partner. A community network of THz amplifier users in magnetic resonance spectroscopy, plasma diagnostics and mm-wave radar applications will be built up to the benefit of future co-created research collaborations. These include the use of the PS-EIKA in Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) and to improve the sensitivity by many orders of magnitude of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) through DNP techniques. The EPR and DNP enhanced NMR (including the possibility of pulsed DNP-NMR and the use of phase and amplitude modulation) experiments will strongly enhance the UK's position as a world leader in a wide range of academic research areas in physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and medicine. These sources are also of national and international importance in the areas of magnetically confined fusion for plasma diagnostics and mm-wave radar systems. New high power sub-millimetre wave amplifiers and terahertz oscillators will be constructed for radically improved sensitivities in NMR/DNP and EPR instruments in high magnetic fields, enhanced plasma diagnostics and THz imaging. Network activities as part of the proposal will bring together leading groups/industries in the magnetic resonance spectroscopy, microwave plasma diagnostics community and the high power amplifier and microwave/mm-wave source community. Increased capability in these areas as well as enhanced capability to measure fast and slow moving objects using sub-millimetre wave radars will be exploited via our Project Partner. All network members have an outstanding track record in relevant technology and methodology development and all have strong links with National and International applications programs with multiple collaborators across RF and Microwave science and technology application areas.

The largest threat of future rapid sea level rise is from the collapse of ice sheets due to instability and runaway ice loss. It could lead to more than 1 m of sea level rise by 2100, submerging land currently home to 100 million people and causing further destruction in higher-elevation coastal regions through enhanced storm and flood risk. Predicting the future possibility of such instabilities and the resulting plausible 'worst case' sea level change is critical for adequately planning coastal defences and long term infrastructures (e.g. 150 years planning horizon), especially those for which a rare event could have devastating consequences (e.g. nuclear power plants, the Thames barrier, transport networks). Yet, this is extremely challenging, because ice sheet instabilities have not occurred since we started observing ice sheets (the record is too short and ice sheets have been stable in the recent past) and they depend on poorly understood mechanisms (e.g. sliding of ice) that occur in inaccessible areas, such as under kilometres of ice. There is a solution: ice sheet instabilities have occurred in the geological past, for example in North America, 14,500 years ago (the time of mammoths and modern humans), producing ~7 m sea level rise in 340 years. Ancient ice sheets have left fingerprints of their activity and retreat on the landscape, which have been reconstructed in great detail in places such as the UK, Northern Europe and North America. These records of past ice sheet evolution provide an untapped goldmine of data that could be used to test and improve numerical models, informing future projections. This concept was demonstrated by DeConto and Pollard (2016), who projected Antarctic melting resulting in 15 m of sea level rise by 2500 based on constraints from 3 million years ago (the last time levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide were as high as today). However, there is an important missing piece to this work. In order to reliably translate knowledge from the past into confident future projections, the most important and complex source of uncertainty in modelling past ice sheets needs to be accounted for: the climate. This requires new statistical methods and a person with a unique combination of expertise in statistics, climate and ice sheet instabilities to lead their development. The ambition for this fellowship, is to make that person me . I will lead an interdisciplinary team of researchers to develop and apply new statistical and physically-based tools to accurately quantify uncertainties in past, present and future climate and ice sheet evolution, thus unlocking the key potential of geological records to constrain future ice sheet instability. This will produce the first robust projection of future ice sheet instability and the resulting sea level change. It will unite and grow the three leading strands of my research: mechanisms of ice sheet instability, climate change, and uncertainty quantification, establishing me as a world leader in using geological data to constrain ice sheet behaviour and future sea level change.

Osteoporosis and osteoarthritis affect millions of patients around the world and are eventually characterised by a reduction of bone strength that results in increased rates of fractures. Life expectancy continues to rise but patient specific treatment solutions to optimally manage those patients are sill not available. Such solutions could consist of tailored medication strategies and, at a later stage, tailored implant solutions which require a thorough understanding of the mechancial competence of structural tissue. While the mechanical behaviour of bone is currently well characterised at the upper level of tissue organisation, the underlying nonlinear mechanical properties of mineralised collagen fibre assemblies, however, remain obscured by structural features such as cellular porosity, lamellar organisation, cement lines, cracks and other interfaces. Starting from preliminary pilot experiments, this proposal aims at performing simultaneous uniaxial micropillar strength tests and structural measurements using small-angle X-ray scattering and wide-angle X-ray diffraction on micron-sized volumes of the extra-cellular matrix (ECM) and, thus, on mineralised collagen fibre assemblies only. This project will result in a versatile and powerful experimental framework that will be used to understand the structure-mechanics relation of ECM with an unprecedented spatial resolution of the mechanical experiment. The results of this project will inform the engineering of patient-specific material solutions in silico through all relevant length scales starting from the ECM level. This, in turn, will foster the development and realisation of production technologies for manufacturing patient-specific "implants on demand" which could be offered as a service or embedded in a hospital. The novel experimental techniques may be useful for testing and developing functional thin films such as implant coatings, investigating the impact of pathological changes on the ECM, or even to reduce, refine, and replace animal experiments.

In many areas of engineering, materials suffer deformation at high rates. This is the case when structures undergo impact, crash, blast, etc. but also in material forming like stamping or machining for instance. Therefore, it is essential for design engineers to have reliable mechanical models to predict the behaviour of the materials in such applications. This is enhanced by the spectacular progress in numerical simulation which now enables to perform detailed computations of very complex situations. However, robust experimental identification of refined high strain rate deformation models is lagging behind and hinders the delivery of the full potential of numerical simulations for the benefit of society: safer infrastructures (buildings, bridges, dams), safer means of transportation (crashworthiness of vehicles) etc. Indeed, in order to perform experimental identification of high strain rate material models, engineers only have a very limited toolbox based on test procedures developed decades ago. The best example is the so-called Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) which has proved extremely useful but has important intrinsic limitations due to the stringent assumptions required to process the test data. These assumptions are the consequence of the very limited instrumentation for which such tests were developed, usually a few strain gauge readings for the standard SHPB set-up. The recent advent of full-field deformation measurements using imaging techniques has allowed novel approaches to be developed and exciting new testing procedures to be imagined for the first time. The objective of the present project is to lay the foundations of a new era in dynamic testing of materials based on the availability of digital imaging technology to provide full-field deformation measurements at very high speeds. One can then use this information in conjunction with efficient numerical inverse identification tools such as the Virtual Fields Method to design novel test procedures to identify material parameters at high rates. The underpinning novelty is to exploit the inertial effects developed in high strain rate load. These have hitherto been regarded as undesirable in conventional testing. However, in the identification process they can play the role of a volume distributed load cell for which readings are embedded in the full-field deformation measurements. The idea is ground breaking as it has the potential to lift the current major limitations of high strain rate test, i.e. small specimen and constant velocity. The present proposal aims at providing a platform for the applicant to develop this methodology for many different types of situations in terms of materials, loading configuration and strain rate range. The project has the potential to revolutionize high strain rate testing of materials and hence enhance our knowledge of material behaviour. This will in turn benefit many sectors of engineering and society in the long term.