Dr Navneet Soin

Biography

Dr. Navneet Soin is currently a Lecturer at the Swinburne Graduate Research. Working on plasma growth of carbon thin films, he received his PhD from University of Ulster in United Kingdom (2008-12). He was then appointed initially as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Material Research and Innovation (IMRI), University of Bolton (2012 - 2017) and then promoted as a Lecturer (2018). Here, his work on ferroelectric fluoropolymers established pathways for polymorphism control at both lab- and pilot-scale leading to the development of a patented (GB2516987(A)) technology for the world’s first three dimensional-spacer technology-based all-fibre piezoelectric textiles. The technology was nominated for Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technologies Award (2015) and ITMA Future Textiles Award (2014, 2015). In 2019, he moved back to Ulster University taking up a Lecturership at the School of Engineering. Since then, his research has evolved on to high-power density triboelectric nanogenerators, supported by the Newtown Fund-DST NRF Fellowship (ECR180426324617, 2018) and EPSRC support (EP/V034359/1, 2021). His research interests lie in the development of new materials and processes for piezo-, tribo-electric effect-based energy harvesting devices and the use of advanced SPM techniques of Kelvin probe force (KPFM) for enabling a fundamental understanding of the charge development and transfer mechanisms.