Research interests

• Laser beam monitoring and control
• Hybridisation of laser and Ion beam processes
• Ultrafast and ultra precise processing
• Optics and optical design

 

Current Situation

Martin is a Senior Research Associate within the Cambridge University Engineering Department funded on the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Ultra Precision project.

 

 

Background

Martin obtained a M.Eng in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Liverpool in 1991 and was subsequently employed as an R.A on Brite Euram project BE4046 looking into the control of laser beam properties (mode, diameter and position) for processing at distances over 40m. During this project studied part time for a PhD in high power laser beam diagnostics and control, awarded from Liverpool in 1996.

 

After the completion of studies he was employed as part of a team setting up the Lairdside Laser Engineering initiative aiming to promote and validate laser application within local industry.

 

Returned back to Liverpool University as a Senior Research Fellow looking at the evolution of laser sheet metal cutting in the high-speed regime, and then moved to Cambridge in 2003 to be part of the Centre for Industrial Photonics.

 

 

Patents

 “Method and apparatus for monitoring light beams”, M. Sparkes., W. O’Neill International Patent Application No: PCT/GB2003/000330, 2003.

 

"An Apparatus And Method For Detecting The Position Of A Laser Beam."  M. Sparkes, W.M. Steen, W. O'Neill.  Patent GB 9312585.4, 18^th June 1993.

 

 

Journals

D. Gortat, P.T. Murray, S.B. Fairchild, M. Sparkes, T.C. Back, G.J. Gruen, M.M. Cahay, N.P. Lockwood, W. O'Neill. "Laser surface melting of stainless steel anodes for reduced hydrogen outgassing." Materials Letters Volume 190 , 1 March 2017, Pages 5–8.

 

Krste Pangovski, Omonigho B. Otanocha, Shan Zhong, Martin Sparkes, Zhu Liu, William O’Neill, Lin Li. Investigation of plume dynamics during picosecond laser ablation of H13 steel using high-speed digital holography. Applied Physics A, February 2017. DOI: 10.1007/s00339-016-0589-3.

 

Krste Pangovski, Martin Sparkes, William O’Neill. "A holographic method for optimisation of laser-based production processes". Advanced Opt. Technol., Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 177–186, DOI: 10.1515/aot-2015-0057, April 2016

 

John Bulmer, Thomas Bullard, Brian Dolasinski, John Murphy, Martin Sparkes, Krste Pangovski, William O’Neill, Peter Powers, and Timothy Haugan. Tunable Broadband Radiation Generated Via Ultrafast Laser Illumination of an Inductively Charged Superconducting Ring.

Sci Rep. 2015; 5: 18151. Published online 2015 Dec 11. doi:  10.1038/srep18151

 

 

K.X.Z. Yu, M. Sparkes, W. O’Neill, “Control System for Ultra Precision Processing”, Mikroniek, Volume: 55, Issue: 5, 2015.

 

K. Li, M. Sparkes, W. O'Neill. Comparison between Single Shot Micromachining of Silicon with Nanosecond Pulse Shaped IR Fiber Laser and DPSS UV Laser. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Volume: 20, Issue: 5. NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014.

 

Pangovski, K and Sparkes, M and Cockburn, A and O'Neill, W and Teh, PS and Lin, D and Richardson, D (2014) Control of Material Transport Through Pulse Shape Manipulation-A Development Toward Designer Pulses. IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, 20. ISSN 1077-260X

 

Steven B. Fairchild, John S. Bulmer, Martin Sparkes, John Boeckl, Marc Cahay, Tyson Back, P. Terrence Murray, Gregg Gruen, Matthew Lange, Nathaniel P. Lockwood, Francisco Orozco, William O’Neill, Catharina Paukner and Krzysztof K. K. Koziol. "Field emission from laser cut CNT fibers and films." Journal of Materials Research, Volume 29, Issue 03 2014, pp392-402.

 

Li, K., Sparkes, M. and O’Neill, W. (2013).  “Improved micromachining of silicon with a pulse shapeable IR fiber laser – a direct performance comparison with the DPSS UV laser”,

submitted to the Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, paper number JSTQE-CON-FL2014-04957-2013.

 

Fang, L and Rocco, L and Andrew, C and Martin, S and William, O and Jian-hua, Y (2013) Characteristics of Stellite 6 Deposited by Supersonic Laser Deposition Under Optimized Parameters. JOURNAL OF IRON AND STEEL RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL, 20. pp. 52-57. ISSN 1006-706X

 

F.Luo, R.Lupoi, A.Cockburn, M.Sparkes and W. O’Neill “Effect of laser power on the performance of stellite-6 deposited onto medium carbon steel by Supersonic Laser Deposition”, in preparation.

 

Luo, F, Cockburn, A, Lupoi, R, Sparkes, M and O'Neill, W (2012) Performance comparison of Stellite 6® deposited on steel using supersonic laser deposition and laser cladding. Surface and Coatings Technology. ISSN 0257-8972

 

Rocco Lupoi, Andrew Cockburn, Chris Bryan, Martin Sparkes, Fang Luo and William O'Neill "Hardfacing Steel with Nanostructured Coatings of

Stellite-6 by Supersonic Laser Deposition".

Light: Science & Applications (2012) 1, e10; doi:10.1038/lsa.2012.10

 

Lupoi, R., Sparkes, M., Cockburn, A., & O'Neill, W. (2011). High speed titanium coatings by supersonic laser deposition. Materials Letters, 65(21-22), 3205-3207.

 

Sparkes, M., Gross, M., & O'Neill, W. (2008). A novel non-intrusive sampling technique for CO2 laser on-line beam monitoring utilising a silicon mirror. Optics and Lasers in Engineering, 46(8), 620-627. doi:10.1016/j.optlaseng.2008.03.009

 

Sparkes, M., Gross, M., Celotto, S., Zhang, T., & O'Neill, W. (2008). Practical and theoretical investigations into inert gas cutting of 304 stainless steel using a high brightness fiber laser. Journal of Laser Applications, 20(1), 59-67. doi:10.2351/1.2832402

 

Sparkes, M., & O'Neill, W. (2003). On-line measurement of critical laser beam properties. The Industrial Laser User, 32, p. 38. Retrieved from http://www.ailu.org.uk/laser_technology/the_laser_user_magazine.html

 

Sparkes, M. R., & Millward, A. (1997). An investigation of the performance of a trihedral planing hull. Transactions of The Institute Of Marine Engineers, 109(3), 301-311.

 

 

Conferences

Karen X.Z. Yu, Martin R Sparkes, Krste Pangovski, and William O’Neill. Monitoring and closed loop feedback control of ultrafast glass welding. euspen’s 16th International Conference &
Exhibition, Nottingham, UK, May 2016.

 

Krste Pangovski, Martin Sparkes and William O’Neill. “Investigation into the ablation mechanisms of Titanium, Aluminium, Copper and Brass in percussion drilling operations, using ultra-high speed digital holography”. Photonex 2015, October 2015, Coventry, UK

 

Krste Pangovski, Martin Sparkes, Andrew Cockburn, William O'Neill. 

"Resource Efficiency Improvements through Laser Processing of Designer Materials"

CLEO Europe, May 2013 - European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, Munich, Germany

 

A. Cockburn, M. Sparkes, R. Lupoi, F. Luo & W. O’Neill. "Deposition of Stellite® and Inconel Coatings using Supersonic Laser Deposition". The International Laser Applications Symposium 2013

 

J. Parkins, R. Jourdain, S. Marson, P. Shore, M. Sparkes, W. O'Neill, "Laser Assisted Plasma Processing: An Overview", International Conference of the European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology, Stockholm Sweden, 4th-8th June, 2012 (in press)

 

Cockburn, A and Lupoi, R and Sparkes, M and O'Neill, W (2013) Supersonic laser deposition of corrosion and wear resistant materials. Proceedings of the 37th International MATADOR 2012 Conference. pp. 387-391.

 

Rocco Lupoi, Andrew Cockburn, Chris Bryan, Martin Sparkes, Fang Luo and William O'Neill "Hardfacing Steel with Nanostructured Coatings of Stellite-6 by Supersonic Laser Deposition".

Light: Science & Applications (2012) 1, e10; doi:10.1038/lsa.2012.10

 

Lupoi, R., Cockburn, A., Sparkes, M., Bryan, C., Luo, F., & O'Neill, W. (2011). Hardfacing using supersonic laser depostion of stellite-6. 30th International Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro-Optics, ICALEO 2011, 435-441.

 

A. Cockburn, R. Lupoi, M. Sparkes and W. O’ Neill “Supersonic laser deposition of corrosion and wear resistant materials”, article published in the 2nd EPRI conference, Orlando (US), June 2011.

 

Bray, M., Cockburn, A., Lupoi, R., O'Neill, W., & Sparkes, M. (2010). Supersonic laser deposition of Ti and Ti64 alloys. In 2010 ICALEO Conference Proceedings on CD-ROM. Anaheim, California, USA: Laser Institute of America. Retrieved from http://www.laserinstitute.org/store/CONF/613

 

Zhang, T., Sparkes, M. R., Gross, M. S., & O'Neill, W. (2008). The studies of laser oxygen thick section cutting using disk laser. In CD-ROM: PICALO 2008 Conference Proceedings. Orlando, FL, US: Laser Institute of America.

 

Sparkes, M. R., Zhang, T., Celotto, S., Gross, M., & O'Neill, W. (2008). Cutting with fibre lasers. In AILU Workshop: Fibre Lasers: the Future of Laser Materials Processing Technology. Retrieved from http://www.ailu.org.uk/

 

O'Neill, W., Gross, M. S., Sparkes, M. R., & Zhang, T. (2008). Analysis of disc and yb laser cutting of metals. In Proceedings of LaserSys. Stuttgart, Germany.

 

Sparkes, M., Gross, M., & O'Neill, W. (2007). A novel non-intrusive technique for CO2 laser on-line beam monitoring. In Advanced Laser Applications Conference. Burlington, VT, US.

 

Sparkes, M., Gross, M., & O'Neill, W. (2007). High brightness fiber and disc laser cutting. In Advanced Laser Applications Conference. Burlington, USA.

 

O'Neill, W., Sparkes, M. R., Gross, M. S., & Zhang, T. (2007). High brightness cutting and welding. In Association of Laser Users (AILU) Workshop: Advances in Lasers and Beam Delivery Enabling New Industrial Applications. Cambridge, UK.

 

Sparkes, M. R., Gross, M. S., Celotto, S., & O'Neill, W. (2006). A novel non-intrusive technique for CO2 laser on-line beam monitoring. In Proceedings of the International Congress on Applications of Laser and Electro-Optics (ICALEO 06) (pp. 61 pages). Scottsdale, AZ, USA: Laser Institute of America.

 

Sparkes, M. R., Gross, M. S., Celotto, S., Zhang, T., & O'Neill, W. (2006). Inert cutting of medium section stainless steel using a 2.2kW high brightness fibre laser. In International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO 2006). Scottsdale, AZ, US.

 

Gabzdyl, J., Sparkes, M., & O'Neill, W. (2005). Beam monitoring benefits For shop floor laser applications. In Proceedings of the Laser Materials Processing Conference. Orlando, Florida, USA: Laser Institute of America.

 

Sparkes, M., Zhang, T., Rand, C., Celotto, S., & O'Neill, W. (2005). Application of a high brightness Yb Fibre laser in high speed cutting of C-Mn sheet steel. In Proceedings Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro Optics (ICALEO 2005) (pp. 0 pages). Miami (FL), USA.

 

O'Neill, W., Sparkes, M., Varnham, M., Horley, R., Birch, M., & Woods, S. (2004). High power high brightness industrial fibre laser technology. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro-optics (ICALEO '04) (pp. p. 301). San Francisco, USA: Laser Institute of America.

 

Sparkes, M., & O'Neill, W. (2003). On-line beam measurement of critical laser beam properties. In Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO 2003) Vol. 95. Jacksonville, FL, USA: Laser Institute of America.

 

Rand, C., Sparkes, M. R., O'Neill, W., Sutcliffe, C., & Brookfield, D. (2003). Optimisation of melt removal in laser cutting. In International Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro Optics (ICALEO 03). Jacksonville, FL.

 

Arokiam, I., Sparkes, M. R., Brookfield, D., & O'Neill, W. (2003). Beam focus control in rapid laser cutting. In Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress on Applications of Laser & Electro-Optics (ICALEO 03). Jacksonville, FL, USA: Laser Institure of America.

 

Sparkes, M., O'Neill, W., Gabzdyl, J. G., & Modern, P. (2002). Process laser beam diagnostics. In International Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro Optics (ICALEO 2002). Scottsdale, Arizona (AR).

 

Sparkes, M., Perrie, W., Steen, W. M., & Modern, P. (1994). Automatic laser beam positioning for high-power CO2 laser beams using high-reflective transmissive optics. In E. Beyer, M.

Cantello, A. V. La Rocca, L. D. Laude, F. O. Olsen, & G. Sepold (Eds.), Laser Materials Processing: Industrial and Microelectronics Applications (pp. 213-222). Vienna, Austria: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

 

Magazine Articles

 

Krste Pangovski, Martin Sparkes and William O’Neill. “A new way to diagnose and optimise laser-material processing operations”, The Laser User, Issue 77, p16-17, ISSN 1755-5140