Prof Ursel Bangert

Ursel Bangert is Bernal Chair in Microscopy and Imaging at the University of Limerick and leads the TEMUL group in University of Limerick (UL), following positions of Reader and Lecturer at the University of Manchester, of Research Fellow at Surrey University, and of PhD student at the Universität Köln. Her initial research in Nuclear Physics/Chemistry was followed by research in Solid State Physics and Materials Science with more than 30 years in the area of electron microscopy. She is author/co-author of >250 publications including book chapters and review articles, delivered >75 invited talks, including key-note and public presentations, participated in creating >€25 Mio of research funds, and established an International TEM Centre for Ultra-High-Resolution Imaging and Spectroscopy including In-Situ Capacities, in the Bernal Institute at the UL. She was also involved in the set-up of the NorthWest STEM facility at Liverpool University and the Daresbury SuperSTEM as well as of the University of Manchester TEM facilities.

She carries out teaching in all undergraduate and postgraduate Physics courses including the development and coordination of new courses and laboratory classes and the role of course coordinator/director. She has been/is involved in academic enterprise and knowledge transfer through industrial research, e.g., with Analog Devices, DeBeers, Gatan, FEI, Shell, Bruker, Graphene Industries, Thomas Swan, BP Solar, GEC Plessey, Philips Research Labs, IBM Zürich.

Internationally first research outcomes include achievement of TEM imaging and electron energy loss spectroscopy on the sub-atomic scale to reveal structure and dynamics of individual atoms, e.g., in graphene (work in the Manchester Graphene Group, with A Geim & K Novoselov, Nobel Prize winners 2010), and of electric dipole formation and band-structure properties in ferro-electrics forming agile and controllable domain walls for employment as electronic switches in dynamic nano-electronic devices, use of ion implantation to controllably functionalise 2-dimensional Materials (2-Ds) for novel device functionalities, e.g., single photon emitters in quantum devices, and visualisation of individual implants, their constellations and properties, pioneering in-situ TEM measurements, to observe crystal nucleation and growth down to the atomic level.