Personal statement

Xichun Luo is a Professor in Ultra Precision Manufacturing, Director of Research of the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management and Technical Director of Centre for Precision Manufacturing (CPM) at the University of Strathclyde.

Prof. Luo has strong research interest in fundamental studies and applied research in ultra precision machining, micro, nano and atomic scales manufacturing. His research revealed atomic level machining mechanism for semiconductor materials, Si, SiC and GaAs and ion-induced damage of diamond, and developed ultra-precision freeform machining technologies. His team established the world first 6-axis hybrid micromachine and a novel digital twin-driven smart micromanufacturing system. He invented pulse modulated local anodic lithography and rolling nanoelectrode lithography process and realized ground-breaking sub-nanometre nanostructures; for future photonics, microelectronics, medical and quantum devices.

Prof. Luo won the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) 2015 Ludwig Mond Prize for research and development of novel digital tools for micro & nanomanufacturing. He has over 240 publications, including 2 books, 4 invited book chapters, over 170 papers in highly ranked journals (Google Scholar h-index: 48), 70 conference papers and 4 patents.

Prof. Luo is an Elected Fellow of the International Society for Nanomanufacturing, the International Academy of Engineering and Technology and the International Association of Advanced Materials. He is a member of Scientific Committee of European Society for Precision Engineering & Nanotechnology (euspen) and Technical Committee of the Advanced Forming Research Centre (2013-2019). He is the Sectary General of the International Academy of Engineering and Technology since 2019 and the Past-President of The Chinese Automation and Computing Society in the UK.

Prof. Luo is founding Editor-in-Chief of High-end Manufacturing (a new SciLight Journal), an Associate Editor for Proceedings of IMechE Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, Journal of Micromanufacturing, and Mechanical Sciences, and an editorial board member for Micromachines, Nanomanufacturing and Metrology, and International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing. He organised three IEEE International Conferences (ICAC 2014, ICAC 2015 and ICOIM 2021) as a conference chair and 2 euspen SIG conferences as a co-chair. He has delivered over 30 Keynotes/Plenary Lectures at top precision engineering international conferences.

Since 2009, Prof. Luo has successfully secured around £20.7m research funding (£7.3m as a Principal Investigator, £13.4m as a Co-Investigator) from EPSRC, EU, SFC, ROE, RS and industries (Renishaw, STMicroelectronics, DePuy (Ireland), Spanoptics, etc.). Current, he is supervising 5 Research Associates and 8 PhDs with a research folio of over £4.4m in the field of nanomanufacturing and smart manufacturing.