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MQ Photonics (a Macquarie University Research Centre) and the associated Laser and Photonics CORE (Concentration of Research Excellence) stem from the Centre for Lasers and Applications (set up in 1988 as an Australian Commonwealth Special Research Centre). Activities in this area comprise world-class research in laser physics, optics, photonics, optoelectronics, optical engineering, quantum electronics and their wide-ranging applications, particularly in medical, industrial and communications technology.
MQ Photonics Researchers
For a complete list of researchers associated with MQ Photonics Research Centre and links to their research profiles, please click here.
Background to MQ Photonics
The MQ Photonics Research Centre is based on an active group of researchers at Macquarie University, of whom several academic staff are portrayed above, with links to their research profiles. MQ Photonics aims to achieve and maintain the University's international prominence in the following seven central areas of research activity:
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- Research interests within MQ Photonics range from fundamental laser and optical physics, through photonic technology and engineering, and on to related applications.
- MQ Photonics has an integrated structure, organised to reflect the many synergies between the research interests and expertise of its staff and students.
- New research projects are available for PhD, MSc and Honours students.
MQ Photonics 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 the activity in Macquarie University's MQ Photonics Research Centre has developed from its predecessor, 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.
MQ Photonics now serves as an 'umbrella' for a variety of laser-based and other photonics related 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 MQ Photonics' Associate Professor Mick Withford).
MQ Photonics members are active in the emerging area of biophotonics and in the ARC/NHMRC Research Network FABLS – Fluorescence Applications in Biotechnology and Life Sciences – headed by MQ Photonics's Professor Ewa Goldys.. MQ Photonics also plays a lead role in the 'OptiFab' Macquarie U / ATP Fabrication Node of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Scheme (5.4 Fabrication), attracting NSW State Government support of $150K p.a. for 4.5 years from mid-2007. MQ Photonics members are also actively involved in the NCRIS (5.3 Characterisation) Research Capability Area, the ARC Nanotechnology Network (ARCNN) and the Australian Research Network for Advanced Materials (ARNAM).
MQ Photonics also provides a supportive R&D environment for various commercially oriented activities, such as its spin-off company Lighthouse Technologies P/L (re-named Med-Aesthetic Solutions International after merging with a US-based marketing/distribution company early in 2008). MQ Photonics also continues to commercialise its IP, for instance in Raman and non-Raman medical lasers for cosmetic dermatology. Multiwatt yellow Raman lasers are also evolving for ophthalmic purposes via a contract with Opto Global P/L (Adelaide).
Macquarie University's COREs initiative offers the MQ Photonics Research Centre a further boost to research progress in the area of lasers, photonics, and their applications. This is building on the above existing foundations, with particular emphasis on the Lasers and Photonics research frontiers identified for CORE targeting, as outlined below.
Focus of MQ Photonics and the Lasers and Photonics CORE
The following seven areas are widely recognised as emerging frontiers of research, 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 strengths that we already possess in each area. Each of the new appointees to Macquarie University's Lasers and Photonics CORE is expected to bring research strengths to at least one of these topical areas.
Astrophotonics is a rapidly emerging area that uses frontier technologies from physical, optical and photonic sciences to improve the power, utility and versatility of modern astronomical instruments and observational procedures. For instance, robotically micropositioned optical fibres have already revolutionised spectroscopic measurements from advanced astronomical optical telescopes. Future projected applications of astrophotonics include fibre Bragg gratings, holographic imaging filters and gratings, and miniature photonic spectrographs. Fresh astrophotonic initiatives are expected to open up prospects for optical astronomy, by enhancing focal surface access and manipulating light paths in novel, powerful ways. This MQ Photonics initiative builds on close links with the nearby Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO).
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.
Photonic sources, such as lasers and associated nonlinear-optical devices, are essential components for most photonic systems, thereby facilitating advances in biomedicine, communications, materials processing, imaging, and optical sensing applications. The science and engineering of such sources of coherent light from the extreme ultraviolet to the microwave region continues to be the focus of much research and development. Recent innovative examples from MQ Photonics include: a monolithic waveguide laser, fabricated using ultrafast-laser direct-write technology; ceramic Nd:YAG lasers, ceramic microchip Nd:YAG lasers, as efficient generators of coherent microwave-modulated radiation for communications, defence and radio astronomy; a high-power (100 W) fibre laser with internal resonator; a new self-mode-locked laser mechanism using intracavity Raman conversion; first-ever continuous-wave yellow Raman laser; high-performance tunable pulsed optical parametric oscillators for high-resolution spectroscopy.
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.
Postgraduate Research Projects
Special emphasis is placed on faciliating postgraduate training of Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students in optical physics and photonic science. MQ Photonics operates in several specialised research laboratories located within the Department of Physics and of Electronic Engineering in the Division of Information and Communication Sciences.
The MQ Photonics Research Centre 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 seven 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 scheme. For further information please visit the Postgraduate Studies website for the Division of Information 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.
New Appointments to the Lasers and Photonics CORE
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 contribute to teaching, administrative, and other academic activities within relevant disciplines of the Division of Information and Communication Sciences (soon to be incorporated in the new Faculty of Science) at Macquarie University.
Intended additional outcomes from these appointments include:
Five of the six Lasers and Photonics CORE positions advertised have now been filled by Dr Alex Fuerbach, Dr David Spence, Associate Professor Mike Steel, Associate Professor Mick Withford and Associate Professor Andrei Zvyagin (see above gallery of Lasers and Photonics CORE Researchers).
The following position is currently advertised in Macquarie University's website:
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Please see also Centre for Lasers and Applications (CLA), and the Lasers and Photonics CORE