In conversation with Professor Nigel Allinson MBE

Following his retirement in June 2025 as Distinguished Chair of Image Engineering at the University of Lincoln, we celebrated the achievements of Professor Nigel Allinson MBE, one of ISDI’s founding members.

To honour his contributions, we created a series of videos (recorded last year) in which Professor Allinson discusses topics such as the origins of ISDI, scientific applications of CMOS technology, and the future of CMOS imaging.

Professor Allinson has over 50 years of expertise in Image Engineering. His academic journey began at the University of Bradford, followed by a PhD at Cambridge, where he first explored the field of imaging. After Cambridge, he worked in industry - at what is now Teledyne E2V - focusing on camera tubes, but left after three years to return to academia. There, he developed an interest in imaging through work on crystallography using film and photographic emulsion, which eventually led to his involvement with CCDs (Charge-Coupled Devices), a key technology in digital imaging. He gained significant experience in building CCD imaging systems.

Throughout his career, Professor Allinson held positions at UMIST, the University of Sheffield, and Oxford University, all while advancing his research in Image Engineering and Material Science. As the Distinguished Chair of Image Engineering at the University of Lincoln, he secured a <£4 million grant from the UK Research and Innovation Council under Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for the MI-3 (Mult-dimensional Integrated Intelligent Imaging) project.  The grant was to develop technology which would underpin science and technology.  Nigel and his team recognized the potential of CMOS sensors, and this lead to the development of the world's first radiation-tolerant, wafer-scale (13 cm square) CMOS imager (Active Pixel Sensor), which offered exciting new potential for medical, scientific and technological imaging with much improved performance and lower life-time costs and led to the formation of ISDI.

To learn more about how ISDI began and to celebrate Nigel Allinson’s remarkable work, watch our video and subscribe to our YouTube channel @isdicmos.

Case Study on impact of MI-3 Project

https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=37280

 Publications

Radiation Hardness of a Large Area CMOS Active Pixel Sensor for Bio-medical applications

M. Esposito, T. Anaxagoras; O. Diaz; K. Wells and N. M. Allinson

DynAMITe: a wafer scale sensor for biomedical applications

M. Esposito, T. Anaxagoras, A. Fant, K. Wells  A. Konstantinidis,
J.P.F. Osmond, P.M. Evans, R.D. Spellerd and N.M. Allinson

CMOS Active Pixel Sensors for imaging in proton radiotherapy

M. Esposito, T. Price, J. Taylor, C. Waltham, B. Phoenix, S. Manger, G. Poludniowski, P. Evans, S. Green, D. Parker, P. Allport, S. Manolopoulos, J. Nieto-Camero and N. Allinson

Read more ISDI publications here:

https://www.isdicmos.com/awards

Grant support for this programme of work included:

https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/

EPSRC — Basic Technology: M-I3 - Multidimensional Integrated Intelligent Imaging (GR/S85733/01) - Sept 2004 - Feb 2009 - £4,412k (University of Sheffield)

EPSRC — Ultimate Microscopy: Wavelength-Limited Resolution Without High Quality Lenses (EP/E034055/1) - Sept 2007 - March 2012 - £4,310k (Partner with responsibility to develop new CMOS imagers for electron microscopy) (University of Sheffield)

EPSRC —MI-3 Plus (EP/G037671/1 and /2) - Aug 2009 - Jan 2013 - £1,194k (University of Sheffield, transferred to University of Lincoln).