Rob Scholten and Keith Nugent (Latrobe University) have received $765,500 in funding in a ARC Discovery Project grant ‘Atomic scale imaging with high coherence ions and electrons’ commencing in 2017. This project aims to combine a cold atom electron-ion source with a commercial microscope column for atomic-scale imaging in biosciences and materials science. Nanoscale imaging with electron and ion microscopy are tools for investigating the world at the atomic scale, underpinning development in modern technologies from semiconductor devices to medical treatments. This project will use ideas from laser cooling of atoms and atom optics to achieve new imaging modalities for time-lapse imaging of fundamental processes at the nano-scale. It will allow increasingly small scale resolution of fundamental processes at the nano-scale.
Professor Chantler has been recognised for advances in the accurate measurement and understanding of photons and matter interaction in the X-ray regime. Congratulations, Chris!
Work led by Eugene Panchenko and Jasper Cadusch describing a novel polarisation-sensitive, nanoantenna-enabled Metal-Semiconductor-Metal photodetector was published in ACS Photonics on 9 September 2016. This device demonstrates the capacity for plasmonics to contribute to new, ultracompact optical communication, sensing and imaging systems. A link to the article is here.
Members of the Optics Group and other members of the University’s OSA and SPIE Student Chapters attracted enormous attention with their display at Astrolight 2016 at Scienceworks on 10 September. PhD student Rory Speirs and new MSc student Gijs van Pamelen set up the hugely popular laser maze. Lili Sun from the Astrophysics group presented exciting graphics describing gravitational waves and Rory also set up a Michelson interferometer to show how they are detected. Other participants were Daniel Kelly, Tom Fabig and Mohammed Jameel from the School of Chemistry, Chris Billington and Ana Fabela Hinojosa from Monash University and Sara Amos from Williamstown High School. Thanks also to Ben Sparkes for assisting with preparing the demonstrations. More information and photos on the Scienceworks Facebook Page.
Applications are now being sought for a post-doctoral fellow in Nanophotonics. Details here. Note that applications close 31 July 2016. Contact Ann Roberts for more information.
In May 2016, Ken Crozier was awarded a grant by the Australian Research Council (ARC), as part of their Linkage Program. The project is entitled “Colour matching on a chip” and is a collaborative project with Palette. Chief Investigators are Ken and Jiatian Liang from Palette
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, USA) has awarded a grant on “Long wave infrared photodetectors based on nano-optics and two dimensional materials” to Ken Crozier with Professor Ali Javey (University of Caifornia-Berkeley) as co-PI.
Tim James and Ann Roberts are co-authors with Paul Mulvaney of a paper recently published in Nano Letters: ‘The Plasmonic Pixel: Large Area, Wide Gamut Color Reproduction Using Aluminum Nanostructures.’ Nano Letters. DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b01250, The images below show a rendering in aluminium nanostructures (right) of the photograph on the left. Read more in an article in phys.org: ‘Plasmonic pixels could be used to make non-fading paint’ at: http://phys.org/news/2016-05-plasmonic-pixels-non-fading.html#jCp.
Ann Roberts, Tim Davis and collaborators Daniel Gomez (CSIRO) and Kevin Webb (Purdue) were awarded an ARC Discovery Projects grant from 2016-2018 to investigate metasurfaces for imaging and optical information processing.
