Macquarie University,
Sydney
Concentration of Research Excellence (CORE)
in Lasers and Photonics
CORE Researchers
Background
The Lasers and Photonics CORE is based on an active group of researchers already at Macquarie University, of whom several academic staff are portrayed above, with links to their research profiles. The Lasers and Photonics CORE aims to elevate the international standing of scientific and technological research in Lasers and Photonics that is already well established at Macquarie University, with particular emphasis on any or all of the following frontiers of optical science:
See useful links for additional information.
Postgraduate Research Projects
The Lasers and Photonics CORE is now advertising more than 20 research projects suitable for new postgraduate HDR (Higher Degree by Research) students. These all fall within the range of research in Lasers and Photonics, with particular emphasis on the five frontiers of optical science that are listed above. Please click here for more information and to view Postgraduate Research Project descriptions.
Macquarie University offers HDR scholarships for suitably qualified applicants under its MQRES provide tuition fees and living expenses. For further information please visit the Postgraduate Studies website for the Division of Infromation and Communications Sciences (ICS) and follow the link to ICS Postgraduate Research. Please contact ICS Student Services (enquiries@ics.mq.edu.au) if you need assistance with scholarship or admission procedures.
Lasers and Photonics Research at Macquarie University
An active programme of world-class research is maintained at Macquarie University in the fields of laser physics, optics, photonics, optoelectronics, optical engineering, and their wide-ranging applications. See useful links below for more information.
Much of Macquarie University's Lasers and Photonics research activity occurs within the Centre for Lasers and Applications (CLA). Since its establishment by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in 1988 as an Australian Commonwealth Special Research Centre, the CLA has accommodated research projects for more than 40 postdoctoral research fellows and/or fixed-term academic staff, as well as ~40 PhD graduates, ~15 Masters graduates and ~35 Honours graduates.
The CLA now serves as an 'umbrella' for a variety of laser-based research projects, many supported by competitive external research grants awarded solely to Macquarie University and others entailing multi-institutional cooperation (notably CUDOS - Centre for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems, an ARC Centre of Excellence, the Macquarie University node of which is led by the CLA's Dr Mick Withford).
The CLA also provides a supportive R&D environment for various commercially oriented activities, such as Laser Micromachining Solutions (LMS) and Lighthouse Technologies.
CLA members have recently become increasingly involved in the emerging area of biophotonics and in the ARC Research Network FABLS - Fluorescence Applications in Biotechnology and Life Sciences - headed by Prof. Ewa Goldys (a CLA member).
Moreover, a significant factor in the CLA's future strategic planning is the selection of Prof. Larry Marshall as an ARC Federation Fellow, commencing in mid-2006.
Macquarie University's new COREs initiative offers a further boost to research progress in the area of lasers, photonics, and their applications. This will build on the above existing foundations, with particular emphasis on the Lasers and Photonics research frontiers identified for CORE targeting, as outlined below.
Focus of the Lasers and Photonics CORE
The following five areas are widely recognised as emerging frontiers of research in Lasers and Photonics, in which Macquarie University has a fast-track opportunity to make distinctive world-class contributions. We want Macquarie University to be known as the place where significant initiatives in the lasers and photonics field are happening. Aspects of these areas are inter-dependent, which will help to build on major Lasers and Photonics strengths that we already possess in each area. Each of the new appointees to Macquarie University's Lasers and Photonics CORE will be expected to bring research strengths to at least one of these topical areas.
Biophotonics exploits interactions between light and biological material in a wide variety of applications. The science of light can address many biological and medical challenges, both clinical and laboratory-based, with a diversity of approaches that include microscopy, imaging, spectroscopy, lasers, and fibre optics. Biophotonics is concerned with imaging, analysing, and manipulating living cells and tissues. It relies on unique properties (e.g., coherence, brightness) of laser light. Biophotonics is widely recognised as a key science/technology upon which the next generation of clinical tools and biomedical research instruments will be based.
Microphotonic optical systems manipulate and control light on a microscopic scale and represent a major advance for lasers and optical technology. They include microstructured and photonic crystal fibres, as well as planar lightwave circuits or integrated optical devices, with applications in telecommunications, biophotonics, sensing, medicine, and primary industry. Microphotonic optical systems of interest are able to integrate lasers, modulation, nonlinear-optical conversion, detection, analysis, higher-order optoelectronic functions, and ultimately optical processing into a single 'optical chip' - the optical equivalent of the silicon chip in electronics. Fabrication of such photonic and integrated light-wave circuits depend on methods such as ion and proton exchange, lithography, etching, direct-write microstructuring by ultrafast laser pulses, or by drawing photonic fibres from preforms of assembled tubes and rods.
Nano-optics and nanophotonics are closely related, entailing interaction of light with tiny nanometre-scale structures (1 nm = 10‑9 m). On this scale of length, phenomena are influenced by quantum size effects of matter, and by the near-field properties of light. Efficient control of light on this scale, for instance by plasmonics, is a promising way to miniaturise next-generation photonic devices (e.g., thin metallic films with apertures or periodic features, or particles on surfaces). This raises critical issues, such as how energy is transferred between photons and matter. Both theoretical and experimental nanoscale research is needed to understand light emission, propagation and interaction with matter, as well as optical properties of materials and structures. Techniques used in this context include optical microscopy, surface plasmon effects, near-field probes, and interconversion of optical excitation between propagating modes and localised light fields. This is widely regarded as fertile ground for significant future advances.
Optical sensing and imaging is relevant to areas such as biophotonics, the environment, community health and safety, defence, information retrieval, and entertainment. Ongoing research poses significant challenges for the physical and life sciences, as well as engineering, medicine, and data processing. Research on optical sensing and imaging aims to develop better techniques and instruments based on fluorescence, confocal laser microscopy, surface plasmon resonance, flow cytometry, cavity ringdown and nonlinear-optical spectroscopy, supercontinuum generation, spectroscopy and imaging by terahertz waves (1 THz = 1012 Hz = 1012 cycles/second; wavelength = 0.3 mm), and spatial/spectral imaging by broadband light sources.
Ultrafast laser applications employ pulses of coherent light as brief as a few femtoseconds (1 fs = 10‑15 s), which is at the leading edge of present technological capabilities. Ultrafast lasers offer great potential for innovations and applications. The laser output energy can be concentrated both spatially and temporally, with unprecedented ability for precision microscopy, materials processing, and nonlinear optics. An outstanding technological problem is to develop new types of ultrafast laser that are sufficiently compact, robust, reliable, and cost-effective for applications outside the laboratory. Particular applications include sensing and imaging of biological processes, fabrication of microphotonic devices by laser-induced microstructuring, and coherent generation of white-light supercontinua for spectroscopy and imaging.
New Appointments
To help achieve this research objective, Macquarie University has advertised several continuing academic staff positions, to advance research in the area of the Lasers and Photonics CORE. The appointees will also be expected to contribute to teaching, administrative, and other academic activities within relevant disciplines of the Division of Information and Communication Sciences at Macquarie University.
Intended additional outcomes from these appointments include:
Four of the six positions advertised have now been filled. Three of the new appointees (Dr Alex Fuerbach and Dr David Spence and Associate Professor Mick Withford - see above gallery of CORE Researchers) have commenced duty and the fourth (Associate Professor Andrei Zvyagin) will soon arrive. It is expected that two further appointments will be made to the Lasers and Photonics CORE later in 2007.
The positions originally advertised for Macquarie University's Lasers and Photonics CORE were as follows:
| To apply online: | http://www.jobs.mq.edu.au |
| Enquiries: | Professor Brian Orr, phone +61 2 9850 8289, e-mail borr@ics.mq.edu.au |