Novel and compound glass facility

Our 4-metre drawing tower

Chemical vapour deposition glovebox system with furnace 

A further view of our 4-metre drawing tower 

More Information

About the Novel and compound glass facility

Part of the Zepler Cleanrooms

We specialise in advanced material development. This ranges from exotic 2D semiconductors to bulk glasses with wide optical transparency. Our equipment is custom designed and configurable to suit requirements for novel materials. Our range of tools also allows us to adapt quickly towards emerging technologies. We focus in particular on industrial partnerships and international collaborations.

Our facilities underpin a wide range of specialised material synthesis including:

2D materials
layered and chalcogenide semiconductors
dielectrics
phase change materials
glass making
fibre drawing

These enable devices such as those used in:

flexible electronics
integrated photonic memories
glasses with very wide optical transmission
composite microstructured optical fibres

Our capabilities have led to developments in key application areas such as:

cutting-edge electronics
photonic computing and telecommunications
passive and active infrared fibre components
novel photonic-electronic hybrid devices

Technical specification

We offer specialised glass making using glovebox systems for batching, melting, annealing and casting of glass under dry inert atmosphere. We can further process these glasses into fibre using our fibre drawing tower.

We offer and develop new advanced and exotic materials. These include graphene and 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD). We achieve this using our diverse array of precursors and specialist gases such as hydrogen sulphide (H₂S).

Equipment List

CVD glovebox system for functional chalcogenides and nano materials
CVD graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) system
ALD glovebox system for oxides, carbide and TMDs
200 millimetre wafer 2D material systems
novel glass purification and melting system
high purity metal sulphide powder synthesis
4 metre soft glass drawing tower, tailored for making non-silica chalcogenide, oxide, fluoride and phosphate based solid, ultra-thin, metal core and hollow core fibres

Our equipment is all custom designed and is reconfigurable to suit specific requirements for novel materials.