The JWNC Conference 2026: Reflecting on the Past and Pioneering for the Future
Published: 20 May 2026
On this milestone year of the JWNC 20th Anniversary, we used our internal member conference to learn about the history of the facility and celebrate the ongoing pioneering work happening right now.
We were delighted to bring our membership together for a day of learning and community. This year’s conference was partially a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the first E-Beam run and the start of the facility’s active use, bringing talks that both celebrated and ruminated on the history of the facility, while looking forward to innovative research in the cleanroom today.
The session opened with introductions and an excellent talk from Judy Wilkinson who considered the legacy of Chris Wilkinson’s work and how he was able to take inspiration from people, nature, and the importance of rest to be able to generate ground-breaking ideas.
Judy then awarded the annual Chris Wilkinson Award to Rebecca Setford for her work in nanofabricated plasmonic metasurfaces to detect ‘undetectable compounds’ that plague the whiskey industry, with potential wider applications in a range of fields. This award was accepted on her behalf by her supervisor while she is speaking internationally on her pioneering work.
We were then treated to talks on a range of topics including the automation of complex workflow; dual-wavelength DFB lasers; SNSPDs for quantum technology; vapour cells in manufacturing; efficacy and repeatability in design; On-chip ultrafast THz Sources; CMUTs in medical imaging; and Microcombs for optical clocks.
We then broke for lunch and got the opportunity to have a poster session that included information on various other lab facilities in the university; fabricating curved structures; detecting gravitational waves; millimetre-wave sources for next generation electronic systems; neuromorphic computing; and an overview of the JWNC’s 20-year history.
After lunch, we learned about Kelvin Nanocharacterisation Centre and cancer antigen detection. We then had special guests, Iain Thayne and Steve Beaumont to reflect on the history of the facility. Iain Thayne focused on the early years of III-V MOSFET and Steve on the early years of nanofabrication at the University of Glasgow.
We then concluded with talks on manufacturing quantum electronic chips, mobility transistors and wet processing for Advanced Packaging.
Thank you for your participation in this milestone event. The presentation slides and posters can be found Here.
First published: 20 May 2026
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