PhD supervision
Interested in supervising students studying:
- Ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation and structural health monitoring
- Ultrasonic transducers
- Acoustic particle manipulation
- Acoustofluidics
Dr Charles Courtney
MPhys PhD
Profile
Dr Charles Courtney is a Lecturer in mechanical engineering and a member of the Solid Mechanics and Materials Group.
He works in the field of ultrasonics. Current work includes: the use of ultrasound for damage detection in engineering materials, and manipulation of biological cells with ultrasound.
Charles obtained his MPhys degree from the University of Reading in 2000, followed by his PhD in atomic and molecular physics in 2004.
He then joined the Ultrasonics and Non-destructive Group at the University of Bristol, working for three years on detection of fatigue damage in metals using non-linear ultrasound propagation.
Following a brief period working in structural health monitoring of plates he joined the Sonotweezers project in 2009.
The Sonotweezers project developed methods and devices for accurate dexterous positioning of biological cells, and other micro-scale objects, in fluids.
Research
Charles's research interests are in applications of ultrasound, in particular relating to non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of engineering components and the use of the acoustic radiation force for manipulation of micro-scale particles.
Ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation relies on changes (due to damage) in materials causing changes to the propagation of ultrasound. These changes can be exploited to detect and image damage. Dr Courtney uses a combination of analysis, modelling and experiment to investigate ways of detecting damage in components with difficult geometries or materials.
The acoustic radiation force affects objects scattering an acoustic wave. At ultrasonic frequencies in water this leads to appreciable forces on particles in the tens of micrometer scale, the scale of biological cells.
Careful design of ultrasonic fields in devices allows the manipulation of cells to arbitrary positions. Applications of these forces include cell sorting, filtering and concentration, and bio-engineering.
Charles's current research is aimed at improving dexterity of manipulation and increasing forces, especially near surfaces.
Publications
Book Sections
Cochran, S., Demore, C. and Courtney, C., 2012. Modelling ultrasonic-transducer performance: one-dimensional models. In: Nakamura, K., ed. Ultrasonic transducers. Woodhead Publishing Ltd., pp. 185-219.
Courtney, C. R. P., Drinkwater, B. W., Neild, S. A. and Wilcox, P. D., 2007. Ultrasonic inter-modulation for global non-destructive testing. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Congress on Acoustics 2007 (ICA 2007). U. S. A.: Curran Associates, p. 2367.
Articles
Bernassau, A.L., Courtney, C.R.P., Beeley, J., Drinkwater, B.W. and Cumming, D.R.S., 2013. Interactive manipulation of microparticles in an octagonal sonotweezer. Applied Physics Letters, 102 (16), 164101.
Courtney, C.R.P., Drinkwater, B.W., Grinenko, A., Wilcox, P.D., Demore, C.E.M. and Cochran, S., 2013. Dexterous manipulation of microparticles using Bessel-function acoustic pressure fields. Applied Physics Letters, 102 (12), 123508.
Grinenko, A., Ong, C.K., Courtney, C.R.P., Wilcox, P.D. and Drinkwater, B.W., 2012. Efficient counter-propagating wave acoustic micro-particle manipulation. Applied Physics Letters, 101 (23), 233501.
Grinenko, A., Wilcox, P. D., Courtney, C. R. P. and Drinkwater, B. W., 2012. Proof of principle study of ultrasonic particle manipulation by a circular array device. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A - Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 468 (2147), pp. 3571-3586.
Courtney, C. R. P., Ong, C.- K., Drinkwater, B. W., Bernassau, A. L., Wilcox, P. D. and Cumming, D. R. S., 2012. Manipulation of particles in two dimensions using phase controllable ultrasonic standing waves. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A - Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 468 (2138), pp. 337-360.
Grinenko, A., Wilcox, P. D., Courtney, C. R. P. and Drinkwater, B. W., 2012. Acoustic radiation force analysis using finite difference time domain method. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 131 (5), pp. 3664-3670.
Bernassau, A. L., Ong, C.-K., Ma, Y., Macpherson, P. G. A., Courtney, C. R. P., Riehle, M., Drinkwater, B. W. and Cumming, D. R. S., 2011. Two-dimensional manipulation of micro particles by acoustic radiation pressure in a heptagon cell. IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, 58 (10), pp. 2132-2138.
Courtney, C. R. P., Ong, C.-K., Drinkwater, B. W., Wilcox, P. D., Demore, C., Cochran, S., Glynne-jones, P. and Hill, M., 2010. Manipulation of microparticles using phase-controllable ultrasonic standing waves. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 128 (4), EL195-EL199.
Courtney, C. R. P., Neild, S. A., Wilcox, P. D. and Drinkwater, B. W., 2010. Application of the bispectrum for detection of small nonlinearities excited sinusoidally. Journal of Sound and Vibration, 329 (20), pp. 4279-4293.
Courtney, C. R. P., Drinkwater, B. W., Neild, S. A. and Wilcox, P. D., 2008. Factors affecting the ultrasonic intermodulation crack detection technique using bispectral analysis. NDT & E International, 41 (3), pp. 223-234.
Courtney, C. R. P. and Frasinski, L. J., 2003. Coulomb imaging of H2+ nuclear wavefunctions using the pilot-wave theory of quantum mechanics. Physics Letters A, 318 (1-2), pp. 30-35.
Frasinski, L. J., Courtney, C. R. and Codling, K., 2003. Dynamic dressing of molecular hydrogen ion in intense femtosecond laser pulses. Journal of Modern Optics, 50 (3-4), pp. 485-495.
Frasinski, L. J. and Courtney, C. R. P., 2002. Dynamic dressing of H2+ in intense photon fields. Laser Physics, 12 (2), pp. 463-467.
Conference or Workshop Items
Courtney, C. R. P., Ong, C. -K., Drinkwater, B. W., Wilcox, P. D. and Grinenko, A., 2012. Two-dimensional manipulation of microparticles using phase-controllable ultrasonic standing waves. In: International Congress on Ultrasonics, 2011, 2011-09-05 - 2011-09-08, Gdansk.
Grinenko, A., Wilcox, P. D., Courtney, C. R. P. and Drinkwater, B. W., 2012. Analytic study of circular ultrasonic particle manipulation device. In: IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, 2012-10-07 - 2012-10-10, Dresden.
Grinenko, A., Wilcox, P. D., Courtney, C. R. P. and Drinkwater, B. W., 2012. Direct calculation of acoustic radiation force by finite difference time domain method. In: IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, 2012-10-07 - 2012-10-10, Dresden.
Courtney, C. R. P., Demore, C., Grinenko, A., Drinkwater, B. W., Ong, C.- K., Wilcox, P. D. and Cochran, S., 2012. Manipulation of microparticles using circular ultrasonic arrays. In: IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, 2012-10-07 - 2012-10-10, Dresden.
Courtney, C. R. P., Ong, C., Demore, C., Glynne-jones, P., Drinkwater, B. W., Bernassau, A. L., Cochran, S., Hill, M., Wilcox, P. D. and Cumming, D. R. S., 2011. Acoustic-radiation-force manipulation of microparticles using phase-controllable ultrasonic standing waves. In: The 10th Anglo French-Physical Acoustics Conference 2011, 2011-01-19 - 2011-01-21, Frejus.
Courtney, C. R. P., Ong, C.- K., Drinkwater, B. W. and Wilcox, P. D., 2011. Manipulation of microparticles in two dimensions using counterpropagating ultrasonic waves. In: IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, 2011-10-18 - 2011-10-21, Orlando, Florida.
Courtney, C. R. P., Wilcox, P. D., Neild, S. A. and Drinkwater, B. W., 2009. Application of bispectral analysis in nonlinear ultrasonic health monitoring. In: The 7th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (IWSHM) 2009, 2011-09-09 - 2011-09-11, Stanford, California.
Croxford, A. J., Wilcox, P. D., Drinkwater, B. W. and Courtney, C. R. P., 2009. SHM with sparse ultrasonic arrays in complex structural components. In: The 7th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (IWSHM) 2009, 2011-09-09 - 2011-09-11, Stanford, California.
Drinkwater, B. W., Neild, S. A., Wilcox, P. D. and Courtney, C. R. P., 2007. The ultrasonic inter-modulation using bispectral analysis : towards a robust practical technique. In: International Congress on Ultrasonics (ICU) 2007, 2007-04-09 - 2007-04-13, Vienna.
