Dr. Charles Courtney is a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath. His research covers ultrasonic Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and manipulation of microparticles using ultrasound. He has a physics background (to PhD level at the University of Reading), worked as a researcher in the Ultrasound and Non-destructive Testing group at the University of Bristol for seven years and has worked at Bath for 8 years.

At Bristol, Dr Courtney demonstrated manipulation of particles in a closed chamber by varying the relative phase of opposing ultrasonic transducers, extended this to two-dimensional manipulation of particles arranged on a repeating grid using two pairs of transducers and created circular array acoustic tweezers that could independently manipulate two or more microparticles.

Dr Courtney’s current research is divided between developing new NDT techniques for composites and new applications of the acoustic radiation force in microfabrication.