Nigel Jennett

Professor Nigel M Jennett BSc (Hons) (Physics), PhD (Physics), CSci CPhys MinstP has over 25 years' experience of fabrication and characterisation of nano-structured materials and 20 years' developing nano-mechanical test methods. He is: Professor of Materials, Mechanics and Measurement at Coventry University, visiting Professor of Engineering at Leicester University, Associate Editor of Philosophical Magazine (and Philos. Mag. Letters), international chair of VAMAS Technical Working Area 22 'Mechanical properties measurement of thin films and coatings', UK technical expert on the CIPM consultative committee hardness working group (CCM-WGH), chairs the BSI indentation hardness committee, leads the UK delegation for ISO working groups drafting standards for indentation-based test methods. Nigel has also served two terms (six years) on the European Commission Certification Advisory Panel for Physical and Physicochemical Properties.

Nigel studied Physics at Bristol University (Physics Laboratory prize in 1984 and 1986, and the Raychem prize in 1985). He spent six years researching magnetic multilayers (1990 PhD, 1991 Chartered Physicist), before moving to NPL (1992) to develop traceable Scanned Probe Microscopy and nano-mechanical measurements. In 1998 he created his own research group focused on surfaces, coatings and nano-mechanics and was awarded a Glazebrook Fellowship in 2003 and the NPL Rayleigh award in 2010. Nigel is an experienced leader of projects (Government, Industry and European Commission), and is a regular invited speaker at international conferences.

It is fascinating that a simple change in the size (length-scale) of a material, structure or measurement strongly affects the properties achieved and measured. My early research showed how strain in sub-nano period multilayers could switch off the magnetic moment of Iron. Recently, I have been developing and using validated nano-mechanical measurements to obtain a better fundamental understanding of plastic deformation as a function of length scale, temperature and time.

My goal is to develop the ability to distinguish measurement effects from genuine material performance and generate impact by providing: Design rules for material performance enhancement through length-scale engineering; Higher resolution test methods for testing small volumes of material and for mapping surface properties; Analysis methods to derive macro property information from nano-mechanical tests.