Research Programme
| Statement | |
| Aims | |
| Workstreams and milestones | |
| Research integrity | |
| Risks and mitigations | |
| Path to use | |
| Outputs | |
| Support and collaboration |
This page states the programme as a funder, reviewer, or partner would need to read it: what it sets out to establish, how it is organised, what has been done, what remains, and how it is governed. Detail beyond this level is available under agreement; see Support and collaboration.
Statement
The programme's thesis is that a measurement becomes evidence only when it is reproducible, calibrated, independently repeated, and recorded at the moment it is made (§1.4). It applies that thesis to the security characterisation of 2D carbon thin films, where the standard non-destructive probe, Raman spectroscopy, is known to be under-determined at the Tuinstra–Koenig turnover (§3.2), and it builds the provenance and verification infrastructure that makes the claim checkable by a third party (Chapter 2). The intended output is a reproducible, independently verified, cryptographically provenanced method, not a device, whose artifacts can support a standards contribution.
Aims
Aim 1 — A qualified inversion pipeline for carbon Raman spectra. Establish a pipeline that recovers amorphisation stage, crystallite size and sp³ fraction from a spectrum, first on a deterministic synthetic corpus with declared failure modes, then on measured spectra, with refusal rather than silent correction on suspect input. Status: the synthetic phase is complete and released (Finding 2026.2, Finding 2026.3); the measured phase is planned.
Aim 2 — Provenance and verification infrastructure. Sign every acquisition and every artifact at the moment it is made into an append-only, hash-chained, Ed25519-signed ledger; admit results only through mechanical release gates; publish the criteria openly so that anyone can apply them. Status: in place and released (Finding 2026.4); the criteria are published as MCV-1 (§2.6).
Aim 3 — Interlaboratory reproducibility. Demonstrate that the method survives a blind repeatability test and independent verification by a laboratory other than the author's, with the two ledgers compared receipt by receipt (§3.5). Status: planned; instrument access and partner engagement are being arranged.
Workstreams and milestones
| Milestone | Gate | Status |
|---|---|---|
| M1 Synthetic corpus and verification harness | Corpus regenerates byte-identically; harness thresholds fixed in advance; release gates pass | Complete, released 2026-09-03 |
| M2 Measured pilot | Measured spectra from a characterisation partner replace the synthetic corpus; the unchanged harness is rerun; refusal gate stands in front of measured data | Planned; awaiting instrument access |
| M3 Blind repeatability | Operators and sessions blinded; agreement within stated tolerance | Planned |
| M4 Independent verification | A second laboratory acquires and analyses independently; ledgers compared receipt by receipt | Planned; engagement to be confirmed |
| M5 Publish and file | Findings, compiled preprint, data package with digests, and standards artifacts released | Follows M4 |
Two further workstreams, the evaluation of sensing technologies and system-architecture optimisation by seeded Monte-Carlo, share the same doctrine and are reported separately.
Research integrity
Every quantitative statement carries a claim status (MODELLED, COMPUTED, TO-VERIFY, or MEASURED) printed inline and carried in artifact metadata; negative results are retained beside positive ones (Finding 2026.4). Release gates are fixed before results are seen. Released findings are never altered without record; corrections appear in the Errata. The verifier is implemented independently of the writer and holds no keys for the systems it verifies (§2.5). Materials, data and software transfers are screened for export-control obligations before release, and work with partners appears here only at the level cleared for publication. The programme involves no human subjects and no personal data.
Risks and mitigations
| Risk | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| The forward model omits physics that real films show | The measured pilot comes before any extension of the model; the harness is rerun unchanged, so a gap appears as a failed gate rather than a tuned result; the refusal gate stands in front of measured data |
| Instrument access or partner engagement is delayed | Day-rate instrument time and commercial samples remove the dependency on any single laboratory; the synthetic phase continues to widen the corpus meanwhile |
| Transfers of samples or data are restricted | Export-control screening precedes every transfer; partners and routes are chosen to keep transfers within permitted channels; restricted material is reported at the cleared level only |
| Results fail to reproduce across laboratories | Blinding by protocol; receipt-by-receipt comparison of ledgers; a disagreement is itself recorded and reported as a finding rather than reconciled quietly |
| Compromise of a signing key or of the ledger | Keys held in hardware under stated custody; an independent verifier implementation; chain heads published so that a rewrite is detectable from a single stale copy |
| Funding gap before the measured phase | The programme is self-funded at its current scale; the measured phase is scoped in stages, each of which yields a releasable finding |
Path to use
The intended end state is a measurement procedure that a standards body can adopt: a specification of acquisition, calibration, fitting, stage assignment and provenance for carbon thin films, with a verification harness that anyone can run and a reference corpus with published digests. The natural home for such a procedure is the family of standards on the characterisation of two-dimensional materials, to which the programme intends to contribute once the measured and interlaboratory phases are complete. The open method is upstream of, and separate from, the commercial tooling SSX360 sells; the method is released under open licences (Data Management and Sharing Plan), and adoption by others is the measure of its success.
Outputs
Findings are released under Findings with Markdown sources and SHA-256 digests; groups of findings are compiled into preprints under Publications. Software released from the programme is listed under Software. The Data Management and Sharing Plan states how data, code and provenance records are kept and shared, and Facilities and Resources describes the platform they run on.
Support and collaboration
The measured phase needs three things: instrument time on Raman systems with more than one excitation wavelength, together with AFM and, where available, focused-ion-beam access; reference samples, in the first instance commercial CVD graphene films and amorphous-carbon coatings on characterised substrates; and a second laboratory willing to run the blind and independent legs. Current support: the programme is self-funded through SSX360 Corp. Funding for the measured phase, and for the standards work that follows it, is being sought.
For funders and reviewers, the following are available on request: a biographical sketch and the Curriculum Vitae; a current-and-pending-support statement; the facilities statement in funder format; the whitepaper from which the released findings are compiled, under agreement; and the programme plan with schedule and budget. Correspondence: mission@ssx360.com.