New global atlas maps out ocean areas most affected by light pollution
As coastal areas become increasingly built up, concerns are growing about levels of artificial light at night (ALAN) and its potential impacts on the marine environment. A new study, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, maps out areas of the ocean most affected by light pollution.
December 2021
Rapid shaking creates stable matter-wave solitons
Active research is currently ongoing to understand the response of many-body systems to driving forces that are periodically modulated. A collaboration of researchers at the University of Strathclyde and Durham University recently demonstrated a new quantum state of matter waves in such a system, called a “Floquet soliton.”
December 2021
Scottish laser centre receives five-year funding boost
The Strathclyde-based Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP) is to receive £6.5m over the next five years from the Scottish Government.
December 2021
Strathclyde Physics Professor wins second international award in one year
Professor Martin Dawson has been named as the 2021 winner of the Global SSL Award of Outstanding Achievement by the International SSL (solid state lighting) Alliance (ISA).
December 2021
IOPP Poster Competition Winner
Many congratulations to Megan Clapperton for winning the IOP Twitter Poster Competition in the "Optics and photonics" category. Megan is a PhD student working under the supervision of Prof Gail McConnell. Megan is also known as the Tonsil Fairy for her work using the Mesolens to study tonsillitis.
November 2021
Academic receives Rank Prize Research Visionary Award
Dr Fabien Massabuau has been recognised as one of six Research Visionaries by the Rank Prize. Dr Massabuau will present his perspective on the next 50 years scientific advances in optoelectronics at a special event on the 18th January 2022.
November 2021
Promotion and Welcome
The Department congratulates Michael Strain on his promotion to Professor, and welcomes Viv Kendon as the new Professor of Quantum Technology. Viv joins us from the University of Durham and, as a theorist, she is working on quantum computation and quantum information.
November 2021
Black holes of ‘all shapes and sizes’ in new gravitational wave catalogue
The largest catalogue of gravitational wave events ever assembled has been released, with dozens of ripples in space time captured by a global network of detectors.
November 2021
Physics experiment in Earth’s atmosphere could help improve GPS performance
The Earth’s atmosphere has been used as a ‘laboratory’ to carry out a physics experiment, in research collaboration involving the University of Strathclyde which could help to improve the performance of GPS.
October 2021
APS Fellowship
Professor Andrew Daley has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, for his “pioneering theoretical work on the boundary between quantum optics, many-body physics, and for experiments in both atomic, molecular, and optical physics and the solid state”.
October 2021
Strathclyde researchers integrate optical devices made of multiple materials onto single chip
High-accuracy integration of photonic devices from multiple-materials in close proximity offers unique possibilities of fabricating chip-based systems of more compact designs using optical devices.
September 2021
Memory devices on satellites to enable the quantum internet
The installation of memory and ‘repeater’ devices in space, to enable use of the quantum internet, have been proposed in research by the University of Strathclyde and an international collaboration.
September 2021
Alessandro Rossi interviewed in Nature magazine
In an article in Nature magazine Alessandro Rossi talks about his research across Strathclyde and the National Physical Laboratory, and the challenges of bringing together quantum physics with metrology.
August 2021
Strathclyde Physics researcher receives Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship
Dr James McGilligan is one of 16 recipients of Research Fellowships, announced by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) to mark the programme’s 20th anniversary. His project will investigate microfabricating chip-scale atomic platforms for quantum navigators and the development of highly accurate atomic clocks.
August 2021
Two Strathclyde Academics in IOP Applied Physics Journal Emerging Leaders List
Dr Alessandro Rossi and Dr Fabien Massabuau have been named as emerging leaders by Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics (JPhysD) in a recent Special Issue.
August 2021
Scotland’s last Auschwitz survivor leaves £500,000 gift to fund quantum research
Judith Rosenberg – who died in January aged 98 and who was Scotland’s last Auschwitz survivor – left in her Will a legacy gift to the University of Strathclyde. Her donation will go towards the creation of the Harold and Judith Rosenberg Chair in Quantum Technology and the Harold and Judith Rosenberg Quantum Technology Laboratoriesin their honour.
July 2021
First experimental observations of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking of temporal cavity solitons in Kerr ring resonators
A collaboration between The University of Auckland (New Zealand), the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, the ICB laboratory in Dijon (France), the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and the University of Strathclyde has led to the first experimental observations of the Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking (SSB) of temporal cavity solitons in Kerr ring resonators.
July 2021
The paradox of a free-electron laser without the laser: a new source of coherent radiation
A new way of producing coherent light in the ultra-violet spectral region, which points the way to developing brilliant table-top x-ray sources, has been produced in research led at the University of Strathclyde. Scientists have developed a type of ultra-short wavelength coherent light source that does not require laser action to produce coherence.
July 2021
Inspiring women celebrated in naming of Strathclyde’s new Learning & Teaching Building
The University of Strathclyde will honour three prominent women through the naming of its new Learning and Teaching Building. The former Colville building will be named the Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell Wing in recognition of the renowned astrophysicist, first woman president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Institute of Physics, and honorary graduate of Strathclyde.
July 2021
New source of gravitational waves discovered
Scientists have picked up the ripples in space-time caused by the death spiral of two celestial juggernauts – a neutron star and a black hole – for the first time.
June 2021
Fast Scrambling of Quantum Information in Atom Arrays
Understanding how information spreads in microscopic systems is important across different areas of physics, ranging from fundamental understanding of the behaviour of black holes, to the engineering and implementation of quantum computers. In a new paper in Physical Review Letters, Tomohiro Hashizume, Prof. Andrew Daley and collaborators have shown how a fast scrambler for quantum information could be built in the laboratory.
June 2021
Multiple Self-Organized Phases and Spatial Solitons in Cold Atoms Mediated by Optical Feedback
A Strathclyde-based team of researchers within the European training network ColOpt has published in PRL results that provide new insight into the physics of structural transitions and self-organisation in cold and ultracold atomic gases, and similar spontaneous symmetry breaking phenomena in photonics systems.
June 2021
A new type of miniature plasma particle accelerator
An international collaboration, involving the University of Strathclyde, combined two kinds of plasma accelerators to achieve a rapid energy gain of electrons in only a few millimetres. The accelerator could offer a compact source of high-quality electron beams for applications such as x-ray generation, material science and biomedical research.
May 2021
Promotions
The Department congratulates Alan Phelps on being made an Emeritus Professor, Antonio Hurtado on his promotion to Reader, Alessandro Rossi on his promotion to Senior Lecturer, Robert Cameron on being appointed to a Proleptic Lectureship, and Grace Manahan on her promotion to Research Fellow.
May 2021
Quantum encryption scheme to be tested on satellite
A new scheme for using quantum technology to encrypt messages with the aim of a secure global communication network, is to be tested on a satellite, in a programme involving the University of Strathclyde.
May 2021
Researchers create one-dimensional lattice for electrons
A collaboration between experimentalists at the University of Pittsburgh and theorists at the University of Strathclyde, published in Nature Physics, has directly engineered and studied the behaviour of electrons in the Kronig-Penney model within a programmable oxide material.
April 2021
Head of Department joins Scotland’s National Academy
The Department is pleased to congratulate Professor Paul McKenna on his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
March 2021
Increasing the accuracy of atomic clocks
Innovative techniques in the miniaturisation of optical atomic clocks are being developed in research involving the University of Strathclyde. Dr Paul Griffin, the University’s lead researcher for the project, said: “This project is tackling head on the difficult problem of taking research-grade technology from the laboratory and into practicable and scalable quantum devices.”
March 2021
New technologies for investigating diseases in the deep brain
Researchers at the University of Strathclyde are part of an international study creating new photonic tools for accessing the deep brain, for the study and treatment of neurological diseases. Strathclyde is the sole UK participant in DEEPER (Deep Brain Photonic Tools for Cell-Type Specific Targeting of Neural Diseases), which is investigating the deep-brain alterations underlying the origin of neurological and psychiatric diseases.
March 2021
High energy radiotherapy could ‘paint’ tumours to avoid harming healthy tissue
A radiotherapy technique which ‘paints’ tumours by targeting them precisely, and avoiding healthy tissue, has been devised in research led by the University of Strathclyde. Researchers used a magnetic lens to focus a Very High Electron Energy (VHEE) beam to a zone of a few millimetres. Concentrating the radiation into a small volume of high dose will enable it to be rapidly scanned across a tumour, while controlling its intensity.
February 2021
Cockcroft Institute awarded more than £11 million to boost Accelerator Research
The Cockcroft Institute (CI), a partnership between the Universities of Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester and Strathclyde, and the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), has been awarded more than £11 million for R&D into accelerator science and technology.
February 2021
OSA Award for Strathclyde Professor
The Department of Physics congratulates Prof. Martin Dawson on being named as the 2021 recipient of The Optical Society’s (OSA) Nick Holonyak Jr Award. This award is presented annually to an individual who has made significant contributions to optics based on semiconductor devices and materials. Martin is the first UK-based recipient and receives the award “for wide-ranging contributions to the development and application of III-V semiconductor devices, especially including gallium nitride micro-LEDs and optically-pumped semiconductor lasers.”
February 2021
Alternation of Symmetry Breaking in Photonic Micro-resonators
An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, the Universities of Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt and the UK’s National Physical Laboratory has discovered a new mechanism for optical pulses where two counter-propagating beams in a micro-resonator switch dominance hundreds of thousands of times in a single second.
February 2021
New Quantum Theory demonstrates Laser Thresholds for Nano-lasers
For the past three decades mystery and debate have surrounded the existence of a threshold (the point at which a light emitting device becomes a laser) in nano-lasers, even leading many to think that there are “thresholdless” laser devices. However, thanks to the development of a new quantum laser theory we now have the answer: thresholds do exist for nano-lasers.
February 2021
Strathclyde leads team advancing 3D imaging deep in biological tissue
Dr Lucia Caspani is leading a team developing a new technique enabling 3D imaging of even the most fragile and delicate specimens. The project has received a grant from QuantIC, the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Enhanced Imaging, the first award to be made from the Hub’s Accelerated Development Fund.
February 2021
Polarisation Domain Walls in Optical Ring Resonators
A collaboration of researchers from New Zealand and the European Union has observed for the first time domain walls separating two regions of light with orthogonal polarizations in a fibre ring resonator.
February 2021
Quantum project launched to solve dark matter mysteries
International research aimed at transforming understanding of the universe and answering key questions on the nature of dark matter.
January 2021
Triple success for Strathclyde in new format EPSRC research call
Dr Sebastian van de Linde's project "What do membranes really look like? New approaches to 3D multiplexed imaging of the cell surface" is one of three University projects to have been selected for funding from the New Horizons call by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council).
January 2021
CBE for Strathclyde professor in New Year’s Honour List
Emeritus Professor Allister Ferguson has been awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for services to science and industry.
January 2021