Faculty of Engineering
 

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Angela Seddon

Professor of Inorganic Materials, Faculty of Engineering

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Biography

Angela Seddon graduated with BSc (Hons) in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham, UK. After 4 years away to start a Family, she read for a PhD in Physical Chemistry, was appointed British Telecom Research Fellow developing new mid-infrared fibreoptics and within the year appointed a 'New Blood' Lecturer in Fibreoptics in the Department of Materials at University of Sheffield,UK: she was the first female Academic appointment since the Department's inception in 1937. In 2000, she became the first female Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham, UK, where she continues to lead the Mid-Infrared Photonics Group, within the George Green Institute for Electromagnetics Research.

Teaching Summary

Current teaching

Undergraduate

  • Introduction to Materials Science and Engineering to Year-1 Mechanical Engineering undergraduates (350 students).
  • Advanced Materials (also a vehicle for transferable skills of formal report writing and presentations), to Year-4 Mechanical Engineering undergraduates (MEng) and MSc students.

Research Summary

Research Profile

I lead the Mid-Infrared Photonics Group. My vision is to bring about a new paradigm in mid-infrared (MIR) biophotonics for portable, real-time, sensing and imaging in medicine based on new MIR fibreoptics, including for real-time, in vivo cancer diagnosis. I run a world-class suite of labs. (>£0.7M investment by the University and EPSRC) dedicated to the synthesis and characterisation of long-wavelength MIR optical fibres and devices. The Facility is unique in the UK in making long-wavelength MIR glasses; these are selenide (Se) and telluride (Te) glasses, based on complex formulations and demanding careful chemical synthesis. Our Advanced Glass Melting laboratory is equipped with furnaces, turbo-pumps, gloveboxes (<1ppm H2O; <1ppm O2); our Class-10,000 cleanroom has customised MIR glass extrusion and fibre-draw tower; our Optical Dark Room has comprehensive MIR and near-infrared lasers, and Fourier transform mid-infrared (FT-MIR) spectrometry to measure optical fibre and device performance. Nottingham University's Nano-Centre underpins ability for comprehensive materials' characterisation of MIR fibre. My seminal 1995 paper cited 587x rekindled interest in MIR chalcogenide-glass photonics. The Royal Academy of Engineering / Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship (2007 / 08) & Medical Research Council, Discipline Hopping Fellowship (2008 / 09) were awarded to initiate my MIR biophotonics' research. My Optics Express review re-set some ground rules for achieving MIR fibre lasingcited264x. With DTU, Denmark, we set a world record (held for 6 months) in 2014 in broadband MIR sources demonstrating a MIR-supercontinuum spanning 1.4 mm to 13.3 mm spectral range in fibrecited736x.This was the first experimental demonstration truly to reveal the potential of MIR fibres to emit across the MIR molecular "fingerprint spectral region" and a key first step towards bright, portable, broadband MIR sources for biomolecular sensing, including for cancer detection. I am elected Fellow of SPIE for special contribution to glass photonics, Fellow of the Society of Glass Technology, Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. 292 publications, 239 talks at conferences and institutions, including 100 invited. I co-Chair SPIE Photonics West: Optical Biopsy and SPIE Photonics Europe: Fibre Lasers and Photonic Materials.

Selected Publications

Past Research

Public lectures of Prof AB Seddon:

247 Talks, including 108 Invited, to end of 2022

Oct 2022

Society of Glass Technology: Invited Turner Memorial Lecturer for International Year of Glass

Oct 2022

SHIFT 2022 Spectral shaping for biomedical and energy applications. Tenerife, Spain: Keynote speaker Mid-infrared optical fibres

July 2022

CIMTEC 2022 15th International Ceramics Congress, Italy: Invited paper Breaking Through the Wavelength Barrier: State-of-play on Rare-earth Mid-infrared Fibre Lasers at 4-9 microns.

July 2022

Specialty Optical Fibers (SOF). Optica Advanced 2022 Photonics Congress, Maastricht, Netherlands: Invited paper Mid-infrared chalcogenide glass fibres for active and passive applications

July 2022

16th International Conference on the Physics of Non-Crystalline Solids (PNCS16) Canterbury, UK: Invited paperInto the light of a dark black night: glasses for mid-infrared applications

April 2022

SPIE Photonics Europe, Fibre Lasers, Strasbourg, France. Invited paper Mid-infrared fibre lasing beyond 5 µm wavelength in a cerium (III) doped, chalcogenide glass, small-core step index fibre.

Oct 2021

2021 IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC) on Optical Fiber Technology, Vancouver, Canada on 17-21 October 2021. Held on-line. Invited paper Multicomponent glass optical fibers for mid-infrared,

Sept 2021

Organised by Dr Arnab Ghosh, University of Engineering & Management Kolkata Newtown, West Bengal, India. 144 UG students Held on-line. Invited talk An introduction to glass science.

23 Jun 2021

International Women in Engineering Day INWED'21- set up Women's Engineering Society with the aim of celebrating the achievements and raising the profile of women in engineering. Net-working event at University of Nottingham, Faculty of Engineering. Held on-line. Invited talk Engineering the role of women.

Mar 2021

2021 SPIE Photonics West BO305: Optical Fibers and Sensors for Medical Diagnostics, Treatment and Environmental Applications XXI Held on-line. Invited keynote paper Mid-infrared sources, based on chalcogenide glass fibers for medical diagnostics.

Jan 2020

SPIE Photonics West: Optical Biopsy XVIII: Towards Real-Time Spectroscopic Imaging and Diagnosis. Invited talk Window of opportunity: chalcogenide glass fibreoptics for the mid-infrared.

Future Research

PhD opportunities to join the Mid-Infrared Photonics Group, please contact us.

Faculty of Engineering

The University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD



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