University of Surrey
School of ECM
University of Surrey
Guildford, Surrey
GU2 7XH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1483 876100
Fax: +44 (0)1483 534139
 

Professor S. Ravi P. Silva

BA MA PhD(Camb)  CEng CPhys MIEE FInstP

Background

Ravi Silva is the Professor of Solid State Electronics and Head of Large Area Electronics at the School of Electronics, Computing and Mathematics. He was the Undergraduate Admissions Tutor for Electronic Engineering until Sept. 2001. He joined the University of Surrey in 1995 as Lecturer in Large Area Electronics. He did his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the Engineering Department at Cambridge University. After which he stayed on for a further year and a half as a Research Associate also at Cambridge prior to joining the EE department at Surrey.

His PhD thesis at the Engineering Department in Cambridge showed that Quantum size effects were observed in Amorphous band gap modulated Superlattice structures using a single elemental system, namely amorphous carbon. The variation in the band gap obtained by varying the relative percentage of pi to sigma bonds within the film.

Prof. Silva has research experience in the areas of amorphous films, displays, semiconductor devices, solar cells, large area electronics, fullerenes, etching and plasma physics and vacuum equipment gained over 12 years.  He is responsible for publishing internationally some of the first work on band-gap modulated superlattice structures using a single homogeneous material system (a-C:H) that shows quantum size effects, some of the first work that showed evidence of electronic doping of plasma deposited amorphous carbon thin films as well as reporting of field emission from amorphous carbon and amorphous silicon films at low electric fields. He has a joint worldwide patent on field emission devices based on amorphous Si backed by Philips. Recent patents include the growth of carbon nanotubes, nanofibres and carbon nanoropes at low temperatures. He has published over 100 papers in refereed journals and over 140 papers presented at International conferences. He has conducted research at both the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has been successful in obtaining research funding in excess of £1.8M from EPSRC, industry and the Royal Society.

Prof. Silva is a member of the Advisory panel for the National Centre for Excellence in Si Microelectronics (NESM) and is a co-applicant of the successful bid for £10M to set up an Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey. This building will be ready for habitation in May/June 2002, when his group will move to their new premises with bespoke laboratories.

He was awarded one of ten Outstanding Young Researcher Awards at IUMRS (International Union of Material Research Societies), Beijing, China, in June 1999, a conference that attracted over 2000 delegates.
 

In 2002 he was awarded the Charles Vernon Boys Silver Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics for his 'outstanding contribution to experimental physics of electronic materials for advanced device applications, particularly in carbon based electronics'.
 

Research Interests

His research interests are in the characterisation, growth and processing of novel semiconductor materials for large area electronic applications. His current interest include; electron field emission from amorphous materials and modelling of the emission process, photovoltaics, electroluminescent cells based on amorphous films, electronic doping of amorphous carbon, laser processing of amorphous films, disordered (amorphous and nanocrystalline) GaN for optoelectronic applications, band gap modulated Superlattice structures, carbon nitride thin films, diamond and SiC thin film deposition and the use of ion implantation for electronic doping and synthesis of novel materials and devices.

He has published a number of journal papers in these and related areas.
 

He has been awarded research contracts in;

March `95  Royal Society Research Grant for work on luminescent properties of amorphous carbon thin films.
 
Jan. `96  Foundation Fund (Uni of Surrey) equipment grant for work on thin films.

Sept. ‘96 British Aerospace (Sowerby) grant for a CASE studentship on High Emissivity Infra-Red Coatings. 3 year award.

Sept. ‘96 Philips Research Laboratories (Redhill) grant for a CASE studentship on Electron Field Emission from Amorphous Thin Films. 3 year award.

Oct. ‘96 EPSRC grant for research on Electronic doping of amorphous carbon thin films as principal investigator. 2-year award with the University of Liverpool
 S.R.P. Silva, G.A.J. Amaratunga*, B.J. Sealy, J.M. Shannon and C. Kiely*        (*University of Liverpool)

Feb. ‘97 British Council Travel grant for research on defects in Amorphous Carbon Films with Trinity College, Dublin.  S.R.P. Silva, and R. Barklie*       (*Trinity College, Dublin)

Mar. ‘97 Nanyang Technological University grant (Academic research fund, Ministry of Education, Singapore) for research on Characterisation and application of diamond-like carbon for field emission displays. 3 year award Shi Xu*, S.R.P. Silva, H.S. Tan*, B.K. Tay*, and W.I. Milne** (*Nanyang, Singapore; **University of Cambridge)

Oct. ‘97 EPSRC (ROPA) grant for research on Light Emission From Disordered Group III Nitrides For Flat Panel Display Applications. S.R.P. Silva, B.J. Sealy, J.M. Shannon and K. Homewood

March ‘98 EPSRC grant for research on Planar Matrix Addressed Flat Panel Displays Based on Electron Field Emission From Amorphous Silicon. S.R.P. Silva, B.J. Sealy, and J.M. Shannon

April ‘98 British Council Travel grant for research on Electronic Device Fabrication from Amorphous Carbon with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.  S.R.P. Silva and S. Xu*                  (*NTU, Singapore)

May ‘98 EPSRC grant for research on Multichip modules for terahertz devices. S. Lucyzyn and S.R.P. Silva

Sept. ‘98 British Aerospace (Sowerby) grant for research in Carbon based novel compounds. 2 year award. S.R.P. Silva

Jan. ‘99 Forbairt (Irish research council) grant for research on defects in Amorphous Carbon Films with Trinity College, Dublin. R. Barklie* and S.R.P. Silva.       (*Trinity College, Dublin)

June ’99 EPSRC grant for research on Ion assisted processes for low temperature polysilicon AMLCD on plastic. J.M. Shannon, S.R.P. Silva and B.J. Sealy.

Aug. ’99 EPSRC grant for setting up an Advanced Technology Institute – Joint Infrastructure Fund Proposal. M.J. Kelly, B.J. Sealy, A. Adams, I. Robertson and S.R.P. Silva.

Jan. 2000 EPSRC grant on Millimetre-wave optoelectronic multi-chip modules. B.L. Weiss, J.N. Hay and S.R.P. Silva.

Feb. 2000 British Aerospace grant on Chiral Materials. S.R.P. Silva

June 2000 EPSRC grant on PEELS and Imaging filtering for the development of advanced materials. M.J. Goringe, S.R.P. Silva and M.J. Whiting.

July 2000 NEDO grant on Carbon based solar cells. S.R.P. Silva.

Aug. 2000 EPSRC grant on Validation of ultrashallow junctions. M.J. Kelly, S.R.P. Silva, B.L. Weiss and R.P. Webb.

Jan 2001 JREI-EPSRC grant for Excimer laser processing for Large Area Electronics. S.R.P. Silva and J.M. Shannon.

May 2001 EPSRC grant on Programmable non-volatile memory switches based on amorphous silicon alloys. J.M. Shannon and S.R.P. Silva.

Nov 2001 NEDO grant on Current Conduction in Carbon for Solar Photovoltaics. S.R.P. Silva.

Dec 2001 BAE Systems grant on Low temperature growth of carbon nanotubes. S.R.P. Silva.

Feb. 2002 DTI grant on the Growth and Characterisation of high efficiency solar photovoltaics based on polysilicon thin films. S.R.P. Silva.

We have also been successful in filing 2 patents, one world-wide with Philips to protect a possible new technology for future ‘hand-on-the-wall’ displays, that would be economical to mass produce. EPSRC have supported this project to the tune of £205K.
 

Large Area Electronics Group - University of Surrey

more information 

Other groups

 

R.Silva@surrey.ac.uk
Jan. 2002