Ben Scott

I am a doctoral candidate for experimental physics and engineering within the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Metamaterials with funding from the ESPRC and BT. I work with Dr Alexander Powell and Prof Ken Evans developing self-actuating surfaces for tuneable microwave metamaterials.

I graduated in 2022 from Heriot-Watt University with an MEng degree in Mechanical Engineering, during which I was awarded the MacTaggart Scott prize in my first year. During my final two years of study, I was a member of the Integrated Soft Machines Lab working the area of soft robotics. In this lab, I collaborated with others in projects based in prosthetics as well as silicone based soft actuation. My own work was based mainly around improving the sensitivity of Ecoflex and PDMS strain sensors: this was achieved using a graphene-based nanocomposite to geometrically print auxetic based designs onto soft substrates.

My PhD project is to reduce the electronics involved in metamaterials as creating these arrays of circuits can be costly and difficult. Usually when a material is created its properties are fixed; however, using techniques such as kirigami and self-actuating materials, these properties can be altered through environmental stimuli such as light, moisture, or temperature. This could result in zero-power metamaterials, novel designs for antennas and reflectarrays as well as leading to easier industrial implementation of the devices.