Eoghan joined the group as an undergraduate final year student in the University of Limerick in 2014. His final year project entitled “Getting Graphene into shape for Industrial Applications” was centred on contamination removal from graphene nano-flakes, supported by high resolution transmission and scanning transmission electron microscopy.
The project was nominated for the IOP Earnshaw award for undergraduate final year projects in 2015.

Eoghan’s PhD project involves the study and manipulation of two dimensional materials, particularly graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) via ion implantation. An ever increasing amount of research is being put into 2D materials.  With thousands of interesting materials, and even more properties to study, many hope for them to become the next generation of super strong materials, nano-optoelectronic devices and gas sensors. 2D materials are also ideal for direct study under the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM). Quantifiable atomic intensities coupled with high spectral resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) reveals a playground of atoms, ad-atoms, defects and vacancies bouncing around the material. Studying the mechanics and energetics of the atomic structure will be key to understanding these “wonder materials”.

Eoghan obtained a first class honours bachelors degree from the University of Limerick in 2015 and is funded by the Irish Research Council GOI Scholarship under Professor Ursel Bangert and Doctor Alan Harvey. In his spare time he likes to go hiking, climbing and generally be miserable and cold in the mountains.