Dr Aseel Kadhim Hassan BSc, MSc, PhD, MInstP, CPhys
Senior Lecturer
Summary
Currently Aseel carries out research in several areas of interest, mainly covering work on chemical and bio-sensors, semiconductor thin film device fabrication and characterisation, and nanotechnology.
About
In the area of chemical and biosensors, Aseel mainly employs optical methods of detection, which include surface plasmon resonance (SPR), planar waveguide based on silicon technology and variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (VASE). Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) is also extensively used for chemical detection. The chemical sensing research is focused on the detection of volatile organic pollutants, as well as on nitrogen dioxide and ozone at trace level concentrations.
He is particularly interested in the deposition of thin films of organic molecules using wet chemical techniques such as Langmuir-Blodgett, spin coating and electrostatic assembly (ESA), for use as chemical and bio-detection membranes. Several molecular compounds are investigated for different applications, including chemical sensing. Some of these compounds are newly synthesised in collaboration with research partners from Russia, The Ukraine and Turkey, as well as other UK institutions. For example, different metallophthalocyanines, including liquid crystalline derivatives are largely applied for the detection of organic pollutants such as benzen, toluene and hexane.
Aseel also works on the investigation of thin film devices prepared by the method of sol-gel, chemical bath deposition and DC and RF magnetron sputtering. Charge transport properties as well as structural, morphological and optical properties of such materials are studied, using a broad range of state of the art experimental techniques that are available at MERI. These include a Keithley 4200 semiconductor characterisation system with the use of liquid nitrogen cryostat, SEM, AFM, XPS, Fluorescence and UV-visible spectroscopy as well as FTIR. These studies are focussed towards device applications, which include photovoltaic and LED applications.
Electrical transport as well as structural and morphological changes of the cothode during activation process have been extensively studied. He has also worked on the investigation of oxide coating for cathode applications in collaboration with LG Philips Displays of Blackburn.