Department of Engineering / Profiles / Dr Oliver J Burton

Department of Engineering

Dr Oliver J Burton

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Oliver J Burton

Oppenheimer Research Fellow

Academic Division: Electrical Engineering

Telephone: NA

Email: ob303@eng.cam.ac.uk

Personal website

Publications


Research interests

Oliver is researching scalable light-controlled nanomaterial synthesis approaches, for applications in catalysis, optical materials, and solar energy.

Oliver has previously worked on integrated routes to 2D material synthesis and subsequent application in device fabrication. Having worked on the chemical vapour deposition of 2D materials such as graphene, Oliver used both in-situ and ex-situ characterization methods to understand how these materials grow and how we can control and utilize contamination levels of certain elements in the catalyst to the advantage of the final 2D film quality. In parallel, he worked towards optimizing the application of these films after their growth for both research and industry and working on novel repeatable methods of process-tolerant 2D material-based device fabrication. Following this, he researched novel nano-lithography strategies using holography and interference phenomena.

Teaching activity

Oliver supervises 1A mathematics for engineers at Fitzwilliam College.

Other positions

Oliver is a Bye-fellow at Fitzwilliam College (Fitzwilliam College Cambridge), Cambridge and the Post-doc theme lead for Functional Nano and Layered Materials, where he organizes intra- and extra- departmental events to enhance collaboration within the university.

He also founded a start-up company Prospectral LTD (ProSpectral), which is creating and scaling novel nanostructured meta-material processes.

Biography

Oliver completed an undergraduate degree in Physics with Theoretical Physics at the University of Nottingham in 2015, before coming to Cambridge to complete a MASt. in physics in 2016.

He graduated with his PhD in Engineering, supervised by Prof. Stephan Hofmann (HOFMANN group), in 2020. After this, he won the NanoDTC Translational Prize Fellowship (NanoDTC) to undertake impact-oriented research and commercialization of technologies that he developed using the funding.Following this, he researched novel nano-lithography strategies using holography and interference phenomena in the electronic and photonic materials group.

He is currently a Research Fellow hosted by the electronic and photonic materials group (Electronic and Photonic Nanodevices Group), where he is researching photo-controlled nanomaterial growth.

Department role and responsibilities

Oliver is the chair of the Postdoc committee in Engineering, as well as the postdoc theme lead for functional and layered nanomaterials.