Physics Research News

Strathclyde joins Cockcroft Institute

The University of Strathclyde has become a full member of the Cockcroft Institute, the UK’s international centre for Accelerator Science and Technology at Sci-Tech Daresbury in Cheshire.

December 2016

Photons usually go straight, but their magnification power increases if they whirl

An international team of researchers, including Bob Bingham, has developed a concept to generate photons that whirl at high speed..

December 2016

Physics World's Top Ten Breakthroughs of 2016 - the Mesolens

Gail McConnell and her colleagues in SIPBS have been recognised by Physics World as one of the Top Ten Breakthroughs of 2016 for the Mesolens, a new microscope lens that offers the unique combination of a large field of view with high resolution.

December 2016

LIGO’s gravitational wave discovery is the Physics World 2016 Breakthrough of the Year

Physics World, the UK’s Institute of Physics magazine, announced recently that LIGO’s gravitational wave discovery is the "Physics World 2016 Breakthrough of the Year"

December 2016

Polarization Structured Beams go the Extra Mile

Alison M. Yao, Christopher Travis and Gian-Luca Oppo of the CNQO group, in collaboration with Robert Boyd’s group at the University of Ottawa in Canada, have demonstrated both numerically and experimentally that propagation of OAM-carrying beams is more stable if the polarization is spatially structured.

December 2016

Martin Dawson celebrates Double Medal Success

An internationally-acclaimed physicist from the University of Strathclyde has received two top awards for his pioneering research. Professor Martin Dawson landed the Gabor Medal and prize from the Institute of Physics (IOP). He also received the IEEE Photonics Society’s (IPS) Aron Kressel Award.

November 2016

IEEE Plasma Science and Applications (PSAC) Award 2017

Prof. Alan Phelps is the recipient of the IEEE 2017 Plasma Science and Applications Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of Plasma Science.

November 2016

President's Medal for gravitational wave research

Prof. Nicholas Lockerbie has been awarded a President’s Medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) for his significant contribution to the detection of gravitational waves.

November 2016

Fresnel Diffraction used to Control Laser-proton Acceleration

A team of researchers led by Prof. Paul McKenna have demonstrated that the diffraction of intense laser light passing through a relativistic plasma aperture self-generated in a thin target foil can be used to control the acceleration of protons.

September 2016

Some types of quantum entanglement cannot be both monogamous and faithful

As might be expected, the terms “monogamous” and “faithful” mean something a little different in the quantum world than they do in everyday language.

August 2016

Herald Higher Education Awards

Dr Nicholas Lockerbie attended the Herald Higher Education Awards ceremony on 14th July, to accept the award for Research Project of the Year made jointly to the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde for the detection of Gravitational Waves.

July 2016

High N00N for random loss affecting quantum states?

A theoretical prediction made by John Jeffers in 2000 suggested that loss may not be so random after all.

July 2016

Symposium on Quantum Information, Simulation and Metrology

A one-day Symposium was held recently in recognition of Sir Peter Knight receiving and honorary Doctorate

June 2016

£4.5m ‘Lab in a bubble’ project could improve cancer care

Researchers aim to use high-powered lasers to conduct experiments in plasma bubbles so tiny that their diameters are equivalent to one tenth of a cross-section of a human hair. Such bubble-sized ‘laboratories’ could boost cancer treatment, medical imaging and industrial processes.

June 2016

Plasma optical modulators for intense lasers

Recently, Zheng-Ming Sheng and Dino Jaroszynski, together with collaborators in Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and UCLA in USA, have proposed the idea of a plasma optical modulator for intense lasers, that not only can change the temporal profiles of intense laser pulses but also produce extremely broad spectral bandwidths, even exceeding of the central frequency

June 2016

Gravity speaks to us again – 100 years after Einstein’s prediction

An international team of scientists has this week confirmed the detection of gravitational waves from a second instance of two black holes colliding, opening the door to a new age of astronomy.

June 2016

Satellite Tests Technology for Global Quantum Network

Dr Daniel Oi, as part of an international team from Singapore amd Strathclyde, has successfully tested in space key components for building an orbital quantum network.

June 2016

Exciting Times!

Strathclyde's David Birch leading industry collaboration also involving the University of Edinburgh

 June 2016

John Jeffers Promoted to Professor

The Department congratulates John Jeffers on his promotion to Professor

May 2016

Annual Teaching Excellence Awards

Congratulations to Prof Gian-Luca Oppo who won the award of 'Most Enthusiastic Teacher 2016' and to Prof Stefan Kuhr on the award of 'Best Teacher in the Faculty of Science' at the Annual Teaching Excellence Awards (TEAS).

 May 2016

Special Breakthrough Prize winners at Strathclyde

In the Department of Physics, three co-researchers are to share in the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the detection of gravitational waves: Nicholas Lockerbie (Head of Gravitational Physics), Kirill Tokmakov and Sharat Jawahar.

May 2016

Non-Conservative Interactions

A recent collaboration between Strathclyde and the University of Auckland in New Zealand has investigated the controlled collisions of two dissipative solitons in an optical fibre ring and found that they either merge or annihilate each other.

April 2016

Physicists quantify the usefulness of ‘quantum weirdness’

Quantum features have puzzled physicists since the birth of quantum mechanics, but such features are presently being tamed in the development of quantum information processing and of the next wave of quantum technologies, including quantum cryptography and quantum computers.

April 2016

Satellites Reveal Seasonal Variations of Suspended Particles in UK Coastal Waters

A recent paper from the Marine Optics and Remote Sensing Group reveals the role of mineral particles in determining seasonal variations in key optical properties of UK coastal waters.

March 2016

Entanglement Becomes Easier to Measure

Luca Tagliacozzo, together with researchers from Innsbruck and Munich, has developed a new protocol to detect entanglement of many-particle quantum states using a simple approach.

March 2016

Gravitational waves detected 100 years after Einstein’s prediction

LIGO opens new window on the Universe with observation of gravitational waves from colliding black holes. Strathclyde researchers contribute to international discovery proving Einstein was right.

February 2016

Freak Waves in an Optical Bathtub

In a recent Physical Review Letters researchers Christopher J. Gibson, Alison M. Yao and Gian-Luca Oppo of the CNQO group in the Department of Physics have shown that rogue waves can originate in the transverse area of externally driven lasers and quantum optical devices.

February 2016

Compact Synchrotron-like Radiation Sources

Feiyu Li and Zheng-Ming Sheng together with collaborators from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have reported a scheme of achieving a palmtop SR source by the use of laser-plasma acceleration in a plasma channel.

February 2016

Optical tornados could boost communication

Researchers have found a novel way of creating intense optical tornados – a discovery that could revolutionise the understanding of how matter behaves under extreme conditions.

January 2016

New Twists in Diffraction of Intense Laser Light

In a recent publication in Nature Physics, a team of researchers led by Prof. Paul McKenna have discovered that diffraction of ultra-intense laser light passing through a normally opaque plasma can be used to control charged particle motion

January 2016