Advent calendar - December 3rd - Horatio Cox

In the Zernike Institute Advent Calendar, we are presenting 24 short spotlights in December. In these specials, we highlight PhD students, postdocs, support staff and technicians of our research groups and team - providing a glimpse into their typical day at work. In Episode 3 meet Horatio Cox, postdoc in the Solid-state Material for Electronics group of Prof. Beatriz Noheda, part of the CONCEPT project and CogniGron.

I am a postdoc within Beatriz’s SSME group and I am employed within the CONCEPT project. This is centred around some recent breakthroughs in Atomic Layer Deposition where it is possible to epitaxially deposit complex oxides at CMOS compatible temperature. This could enable complex oxide electronic devices to be scaled commercially. In particular this is very connected to the goals of Cognigron in developing novel brain inspired neuromorphic computing hardware. A lot of the more exciting neuromorphic devices use these complex oxides that are hard to scale industrially and this could enable a whole host of new devices and systems to be explored.

I particularly enjoy the collaboration within this project which is across a range of different European countries and also between academia and industry. It is very interesting seeing the different ways of working and doing so together towards a bigger goal. Whilst the the ALD is done by a group in Norway, our contribution is mainly centred around Beatriz and the groups expertise in epitaxial growth and ferroelectrics. Having come to the position from London where I worked on neuromorphic devices with amorphous materials this has been particularly interesting for me. I have been learning a lot from the group about epitaxial growth and how to characterise and optimise these crystalline thin films. The perfect atomically flat interfaces combined with properties such as polarity lead to very interesting effects such as 2D electron gas generation at interfaces which has become a particular focus of mine. I am working on several different projects both within the group and with external collaborators at the moment and my days are a mix of lab work, making devices in the cleanroom, programming and meetings. The mixture of different things within each day is something I enjoy and am grateful for within academia.

The SSME group has been an amazing place to work, everyone helps one another, discusses their work together a lot and does activities as a group. This has made it much easier to learn new techniques and given invaluable support when things don’t work. In particular, we are lucky enough to have three amazing technicians—Arjun, Jacob and Joost—who we can always talk to and ask for advice, keep everything running, and enable a continuity in expertise even when students come and go.

Beyond work, I love exploring and climbing mountains with my wife who has recently moved to Mexico. I am applying for positions out there at the moment and hope to keep working and collaborating with RUG when I move out there soon.

See all Advent Calendar items 2025 here!