Physics news - archive

Physics news - archive

Our research is regularly reported in Scientific Journals and at National and International conferences, but many items also reach the general media!  Here we archive Physics Department News for both research and teaching. Please see our main news page for up-to-date news items.

 

March 2011: Physics PhD student wins Young UK Laser Engineer’s Prize

Norbert Lorenz, a PhD student at Heriot-Watt University has won the Young Laser Engineer's Prize 2011 for work carried out during his PhD studies on the development of a laser-based process for hermetic packaging of micro-devices, working closely with collaborators GE Aviation Systems.

Norbert, who studies in the Applied Optics and Photonics group in the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, received the award at the Association of Laser Users 2011 meeting in Warrington.

The Prize is designed to help encourage young people in the UK to develop their interests in laser applications. It is awarded to an individual under 30 years of age, for a significant piece of work. The work must be conducted in the UK and have real or potential economic gain for the parent organisation and preferably for the wider industrial laser user community.

Norbert said:

“Winning the Young Laser Engineer's Prize 2011 was a very nice and unexpected surprise towards the end of my PhD. I feel honoured that my research was so highly recognised by the Association of Laser Users (AILU).

Furthermore I would like to thank the members of the Applied Optics and Photonics group at Heriot-Watt University for their support during my PhD. Most importantly, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Duncan Hand for guiding and supervising me throughout the last 3½ years, without him this work would not have been possible.”

This is only the second time a PhD student from Heriot-Watt University has been awarded this prize. The first student was Fraser Dear in 2008.

 

Heriot-Watt Physics PhD Graduate wins IOP award

Dr Danniel Brunner has won the IOP's Roy Prize, awarded annually for the best nominated thesis in the field of condensed matter and material physics.

For further information about the Roy Prize, and also a list of previous recipients please see the IOP website.

 

Hawking radiation glimpsed in an artificial black hole

Astrophysical black holes have been predicted to slowly evaporate by emitting a very feeble light that can, however, become extremely violent in the final stage of the black hole evolution. Dr. Faccio (EPS - Physics) and Italian collaborators have recently succeeded in obtaining the first ever, ground-breaking experimental evidence of spontaneous light emission from the analogue of a black hole event horizon recreated in the lab using laser technology.

For further information see the following reviews or contact Daniele Faccio (e-mail d.faccio@hw.ac.uk)

• http://physics.aps.org/viewpoint-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.203901
• http://www.economist.com/node/17145159
• http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19508-hawking-radiation-glimpsed-in-artificial-black-hole.html

Nobel Prize Winner Professor Klaus von Klitzing tours Heriot-Watt/SUPA nanoscience facility

(September 2010)

Heriot-Watt University has just taken delivery of a state-of-the-art electron beam lithography system (funded under a new Scottish Universities Physics Alliance initiative). This instrument (a £0.5M Raith Pioneer system) allows features down to 20 nm width to be patterned on semiconductor chips. A laser interferometer-controlled stage allows nanoscale features to be patterned faithfully over mm areas. Today Nobel Laureate Professor Klaus von Klitzing toured this facility on his visit to Heriot-Watt. ‘This equipment is an essential tool in my present work’ said Professor von Klitzing who is currently director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart, Germany. Heriot-Watt researchers Dr Robert Hadfield and Dr Brian Gerardot plan to use this instrument to create advanced nanophotonic structures, in collaboration with partners in academia and industry.

 

Physics research reported in Nature

(June 2010)

Coherent Control of Donor Impurity States in Si (Surrey, UCL, HWU and FELIX) [find out more]

Dr Robert Hadfield delivers superconducting-single photon detector system to UK National Physical Laboratory

(December 2009)

Dr Robert Hadfield has delivered a state-of-the-art superconducting-single photon detector system to the UK National Physical Laboratory. This advanced detector system will be used by NPL researchers in quantum metrology and quantum information processing experiments. This work demonstrates the tremendous value of Heriot-Watt physics research to the UK scientific community [read more].

Laser Summer School comes to Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University

(November 2009)

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has announced £26,000 of funding to the Ultrafast Nonlinear Optics summer school to be held from 11 - 21 August 2010 at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Branded as SUSSP66, the summer school is the 66^th in a series of Physics summer schools co-organised by the Scottish Universities Summer Schools in Physics (SUSSP) charity, which ran its first summer school in 1960... [read more].

SUPA II: Physics Department shares in £48 million investment in Scottish Physics

(November 2009)

Heriot-Watt Physics Department is one of eight Scottish physics departments to benefit from the investment of £48 million by the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council and the participating universities for the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, the pooling arrangement of eight Scottish universities committed to sharing resource and expertise in physics research [read more].

Research Studentships

The Scottish Doctoral Training Centre in Condensed Matter Physics has a number of Fully Funded Studentships in Condensed Matter Physics

 

Physics research reported in Nature (June 2010): Coherent Control of Donor Impurity States in Si (Surrey, UCL, HWU and FELIX)

Most experimental progress to date in so-called quantum computing has involved atom 'traps' at ultra-low temperatures required to achieve extreme isolation from their environment. It has been shown that a much simpler and more robust system is achievable by substituting donor electrons in semiconductors for the atom traps, with far less stringent requirements. We have demonstrated for the first time coherent control of Rydberg states in phosphorous-doped Si at 4K by observing photon echos and Rabii oscillations utilising the Dutch free electron laser (FELIX) to resonantly pump the 1s - 2p Rydberg transitions. Our work shows that we can prepare coherent mixtures of different orbital states for one of the most common impurities in the most common semiconductor. In particular, these excited states may ultimately be used to control atoms in a quantum gate. The phosphorous atoms can be positioned so that their highly localized ground states do not interact, but their greatly extended excited (2p) states do. In this way one phosphorous atom can be used to control its neighbours, without losing quantum coherence. The interactions are also sufficient to produce entangled atomic states, which are fundamental to the power of quantum computing.

For further information please contact Prof C Pidgeon

Quantum detector system delivered to National Physical Laboratory

The ultimate in optical detection is the ability to detect individual quanta of light - packets of energy known as photons. Single-photon detectors now underpin a host of technologies at the frontiers of science, from new methods of medical imaging to "quantum cryptography", the ultimate in secure communciations.

Scientists at Heriot-Watt University have delivered a state-of-the-art single photon detector system to the UK0s National Physical Laboratory (NPL). This detector system exploits revolutionary superconducting single-photon detector technology, which far outperforms conventional detector types in terms of infrared sensitivity, signal-to-noise and timing resolution. This instrument will enable scientists at NPL to carry out groundbreaking experiments in quantum metrology and quantum information processing, ensuring the UK retains its international lead in these important 21st Century technologies.

This work was carried out by Dr Robert Hadfield a Reader in Physics and Royal Society University Research Fellow at Heriot-Watt University, and Ms Catherine Fitzpatrick, a research engineer who is sponsored by the National Physical Laboratory under the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Photonics Engineering Doctorate scheme. This work demonstrates the tremendous value of close partnerships between Universities and Industry.

Research group website: http://www.phy.hw.ac.uk/resrev/SuperconductingDetectors.htm

NPL website: http://www.npl.co.uk/quantum-phenomena/

Laser Summer School comes to Edinburgh's Heriot Watt University

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council this week announced £26,000 of funding to the Ultrafast Nonlinear Optics summer school to be held from 11 - 21 August 2010 at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Branded as SUSSP66, the summer school is the 66^th in a series of Physics summer schools co-organised by the Scottish Universities Summer Schools in Physics (SUSSP) charity, which ran its first summer school in 1960.

The summer school will be hosted in Heriot-Watt's state-of-the-art Postgraduate Centre, and will attract around 100 research students and distinguished lecturers from around the world. Contributors include Professor Tom Baer, the current president of the Optical Society of America, and Dr Thomas Udem, who worked closely with 2005 Nobel Laureate Prof. Theodore Hänsch.

The summer school will cover the science and applications of lasers that produce pulses of light lasting less than one trillionth of a second. Prof. Derryck Reid, Director of SUSSP66, said, "I'm delighted that the EPSRC has chosen to support the School, and in doing so it has recognised the timeliness of this event and the prominence that Scotland now has in this field."

Applications for the summer school close on 31 January 2010.

• Summer school website: http://www.sussp66.hw.ac.uk/  
• SUSSP website: http://www.sussp.ac.uk/

SUPA II: Physics Department shares in £48 million investment in Scottish Physics

Heriot-Watt Physics is one of eight Scottish physics departments to benefit from the investment of £48 million by the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council (SFC) and the participating universities for the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), the pooling arrangement of eight Scottish universities committed to sharing resource and expertise in physics research.

This is the second investment in SUPA which was set up in 2004. The cash will help fund major developments in Scotland0s research infrastructure and personnel. At Heriot-Watt, these will include investment in a new state-of-the-art nanofabrication facility, including Electron Beam Lithography and Focused Ion Beam facilities. We will also be investing in new academic staff positions, in areas which align with our current research strengths in condensed matter nano-physics and photonics.

Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop said: "Scotland's universities have a worldwide reputation for excellence in research."

"We need to help them grow that expertise, while also encouraging different institutions to work together to better share their knowledge with each other and with Scotland's business community to help our economy grow and recover from the current downturn."

"This investment will help support those efforts and help us strengthen Scotland's claim as a world leader in research and development, while also delivering practical benefits for the NHS and medical world."

Since its launch in 2004, the pooling partners have established the SUPA Graduate School, attracted high-quality academic staff from around the world to Scotland, increased the volume of physics research in Scotland, and greatly enhanced the quality of Research Assessment Exercise submissions from physics researchers.