Colm Durkan is a Professor of Nanoengineering Science at the University of Cambridge and is also the Head of the Engineering Department. He is a fellow of St Catharine’s College. He was elected to a fellowship of the Institute of Physics in 2009 and the Institute of Engineering & Technology in 2014.
Prof Durkan has led multiple projects with industrial partners (Including Samsung, Canon, Nokia, Unilever & BP-ICAM). Most recently, he has just secured £1M funding for a project looking into methods to mitigate against bubble formation on the surface of electrodes used for Hydrogen generation – this is one of the primary factors leading to low efficiency of the process.
Since starting as a faculty member in 2000, Prof Durkan has led a research group consisting of up to 15 members, been head of the Nanoscience centre for four years (2009-2010 and 2015-2016), published over 150 papers, given over 130 talks, and developed several scanning-probe microscopes and techniques for nanoscale fabrication as well as manipulation and characterization of the electrical, mechanical and chemical properties of materials. His research ethos is wherever possible to tackle industrially-relevant problems from a fundamental perspective. He has a particular interest in functional and 2D materials as well as nano-scale electronic and molecular devices, and charge transport at nanometre lengthscales.
He has published a textbook in Nano/quantum electronics and a popular science book on Nanotechnology and is currently completing a textbook on the fundamentals of circuit analysis for electrical engineers with Cambridge University Press. He teaches courses in Electrical Engineering, Quantum Mechanics & Nanotechnology