The Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group harnesses discoveries at the convergence of engineering, materials science, physics, and chemistry to create new functional devices. The Group’s research spans the spectrum of fundamental research to device prototyping in the fields of nanoelectronics, wearable sensors, and optical and terahertz devices. This presentation will present a collection of results from each of these topics.

Drawing inspiration from the human brain, and the synaptic cleft, we create nanoscale electronic memories. Oxygen vacancies on ultra-thin oxide films mimic ionic transport in the synaptic cleft, enabling multi-state memories and time-dependent functionality. While creating complex memories for commercial applications, we also show bio-inspired performance with electronics with 10% of biological data.Hard wearables such as smart watches are now ubiquitous, but conformal electronics that function as skin-like sensing surfaces are limited by materials challenges. Overcoming the challenges of integrating high-temperature-processed oxide thin films and polymer materials creates new opportunities in highly functional wearable sensors. Stretchable, oxide-based devices are demonstrated using a patented transfer process, with a surface micro-tectonic phenomenon enabling oxide stretchability. Sensing patches capable of ultra-violet (UV) and toxic and pollutant gas detection are demonstrated.Scaling hard–soft integration to the nanoscale allows the realisation of tunable optical devices from gratings to high efficiency, dielectric antennas. At higher frequencies, in the un-tapped terahertz range, materials and their properties have been a major challenge.