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staff profiles- photonic sensors

 

 

Thorsten Ackemann, Reader

Thorsten is reader in the Photonics Group in the Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, and interested in all aspects of semiconductor-based “Nonlinear Photonics”. His work includes soliton-based photonics and all-optical processing, dynamics of VCSELs, high-performance VECSELs and the nonlinear optics of quantum dots.

 

Dr. Aidan Arnold, Lecturer in Atom Optics

Atom optics, Bose-Einstein condensation, rings and ring lattices, rotation sensing, atomic focusing, diode lasers and frequency upconversion.

 

 

 

 

 

Gerald S Buller, Professor of Physics

Gerald Buller researches time–correlated photon–counting detection and applications. The group is pursuing research in semiconductor-based single-photon counting detectors, especially at wavelengths > 1000nm, these include InGaAs/InP and SiGe avalanche diode detectors, as well as other narrow-gap III-V semiconductors for longer wavelengths (ie > 2000nm). The photon–counting applications studied include time–resolved photoluminescence, photon-counting time–of–flight depth imaging, GHz-clocked quantum key distribution and quantum/ghost imaging. Professor Buller is also a Director of Helia Photonics Ltd. of Livingston, Scotland (www.helia-photonics.com).

 

 

Allister Ferguson, Deputy Principal and Professor of Photonics

Allister is Deputy Principal for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Strathclyde. He is also the Principal Investigator of the RCUK Science Bridges Award that provides financial support for the SU2 Partnership. His research interests are in solid state lasers, nonlinear optics, biophotonics and laser spectroscopy. He is the Professor of Photonics in the Department of Physics, Associate Director of the Centre for Biophotonics and the Technical Director of the Institute of Photonics.

 

Paul Griffin, Research Fellow

Research is concentrated on experimental investigations in atomic physics and quantum optics. A significant research interest is in quantum coherence and quantum information for development of scalable quantum simulators. Further research is being conducted in developing atom interferometry. The latter is guided by the goals of atomic optics sensors based on quantum gases for high accuracy inertial and gravitational measurements.

 

 

Eric Gustafson, Instrument Science Group Leader LIGO Laboratory Caltech

Before becoming the Instrument Science Group Leader at Caltech for the LIGO Laboratory in January 2007 Eric was the Vice President of Engineering at Lightconnect Inc. a supplier of MEMS based optical components for fiber optic telecommunications. Prior to working at Lightconnect Eric worked for 14 years as a Research Associate in the Ginzton Laboratory in the Byer-Fejer group at Stanford University and his research was on diode-laser-pumped solid-state lasers, nonlinear optics and interferometric gravitational wave detectors. In this latter area he was the Chair of the Lasers and Optics Working Group in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
 
In 1985 Eric was a founder of Yellowstone Diagnostics Inc. a biotechnology company developing an optical immunodiagnostic measurements system for allergy testing. In 1987 Yellowstone was acquired by Adeza Biomedical Inc. a women’s health care company. In 1993 Eric was a co-founder of First Medical Inc. a company developing a whole blood point-of-care platform for detection of myocardial infarction and in June 2000 First Medical Inc. was acquired by Sigma-Aldrich Inc.
 
Eric has a BS in Physics from Caltech, a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University and spent 2 years working as a Post Doc at UC Berkeley working to develop photo-conductive detectors for far infrared astronomy.

 

 

Dr Robert H Hadfield, Lecturer in Physics and Royal Society University Research Fellow

The focus of my research is a new type of high speed, low noise infrared single-photon detector based on a superconducting nanowire. This detector is a key enabling technology for a host of applications at the frontiers of science, from optical quantum information processing to medical imaging.  I aim to improve the performance of these detectors and to implement them into practical photon-counting systems

 

 

Duncan Hand, Head of Physics and Professor of Applied Photonics

Duncan is Professor of Applied Photonics at Heriot-Watt University and also the current Head of the Department of Physics. His research interests focus on applications of high power lasers, including in manufacturing; fibre optic delivery of high peak power light for applications in manufacturing and in measurement of high speed flows; and sensing applications of photonic crystal fibres.

 

 

Andy Harvey, Professor and Director of Industrial Doctorate Centre in Optics and Photonics Technologies

ARH conducts research in computational imaging fundamentals, techniques and applications including: wavefront coding for alleviation of optical aberrations, aperture synthesis and spectral and hyperspectral imaging and its application in ophthalmology.

He is also Director of the Industrial Doctorate Centre, a collaboration representing all photonics researchers in Heriot-Watt, Glasgow, Strathclyde and St Andrews Universities. About forty Engineering Doctorate students are registered with the IDC and conduct research whilst based in industry across the full range of optics and photonics technologies and related technologies in microsystems, manufacture and signal/image processing.

 

 

Thomas F Krauss, Professor of Optoelectronics

Thomas obtained a PhD in the area of semiconductor ring lasers at the University of Glasgow in 1992. He then initiated the field of semiconductor photonic crystals in the UK and gained SERC (1993) and Royal Society (1995) Research Fellowships in support of this work. He coordinated EU-FP5 "PICCO" and leads the current EU-FP6 "SPLASH", both studying fundamental and applied aspects of photonic crystals.

His research interest is the study of optical nanostructures and how they can be used to control the emission and propagation of light. This includes studying microemitters, slowing down light to enhance nonlinear effects and to create ultrafast modulators as well as the development of novel biosensors. His 15-strong group operate the nanofabrication facility at St. Andrews, including electron beam and photolithography, wet and dry etching, thin film deposition as well as a characterisation suite for active and passive microphotonic devices

 

 

Gail McConnell, Reader & Research Councils UK Academic Fellow

Gail is a Reader & Research Councils UK Academic Fellow at the University of Strathclyde. Her research interests are solid state lasers, nonlinear optics, microscopy and biophotonics/biophysics applications including the non-invasive optical stimulation of live cells, nonlinear photolysis, optical trapping of biological media and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering imaging.

 

 

Val O’Shea – University Reader

Val O'Shea works in the Particle Physics Experimental group at the University of Glasgow. His primary interest is in the development of radiation detector systems for applications in high energy physics. He is currently working on operation and build of detector systems for experimental facilities based at CERN (ATLAS) and DESY (XFEL).He is a founding member of the Medipix activity and has actively promoted the use of photon counting for a variety of applications. He has worked on various generic detector research programmes ranging from M-I3 (Basic Technology) to co-ordinating the 3D-RID EU FP5 funded development of 3-D detector structures.

 

 

Derryck T. Reid, Professor of Physics

Professor Derryck Reid's research concerns the development of new sources of ultrashort optical pulses, and their applications in science and engineering. His specific interests include: femtosecond optical parametric oscillators; ultrashort pulse measurement and shaping; ultra-high-resolution two-photon microscopy of silicon integrated circuits; OPO-based frequency combs; laser waveguide inscription; and IR optical coherence tomography.

 

 

Erling Riis, Professor of Physics

Erling has a background in precision laser spectroscopy and is now primarily interested in laser cooling of atoms with a view to developing techniques for atom interferometry and quantum information processing. Along with this is an interest in developing laser sources in support of these activities. This has more recently led to an interest in applications of novel light sources in Biophotonics.

 

 

Norna A Robertson, Lead Scientist, LIGO Project, Caltech and Professor of Experimental Physics, University of Glasgow

In 2003 Norna Robertson moved to the USA from the University of Glasgow where she had been a faculty member since 1983. She is currently a lead scientist and member of the professional staff in the LIGO project at the California Institute of Technology, while also retaining a part-time professorship at the University of Glasgow. Her research is centred on experimental work towards the detection of gravitational waves, in particular in the areas of suspension and isolation. She has also worked on thermal noise issues and optical aspects of detection including laser frequency and intensity stabilisation, and investigations of low loss mirrors. Currently her work is focussed on the development of ultra-low noise multiple pendulum suspensions for Advanced LIGO. She is the leader of the Advanced LIGO suspensions subsystem, in which position she has significant project management responsibilities as well as responsibility for overseeing the scientific development from teams working in the USA and UK, including Glasgow. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Astronomical Society and the American Physical Society.

 

 

Sheila Rowan, Director, Institute for Gravitational Research and Professor of Experimental Physics

Sheila is Director of the Institute for Gravitational Research, whose research programme is focussed on gravitational wave observation from the ground and in space. She is the Glasgow PI for the SU2 Partnership supported by an RCUK Science Bridges award. Her research interests include: studies of optical materials and mirror coatings of ultra-low mechanical loss and construction of mechanically-stable optical systems; ultra-stable lasers for gravitational wave detection and other precision interferometric applications.

 

 

Calum Torrie, Senior Sytems Engineer, LIGO Project, California Institute of Technology and Scottish Universities Physics alliance (SUPA) Advanced Fellow in Technology for Experimental and Observational Physics (TEOPS), University of Glasgow

In 2001 Calum moved to the USA from the University of Glasgow where he had worked as a post-doc since obtaining his PhD in Physics in December 1999. Calum spent almost 5 years working with LIGO at Caltech in Pasadena before returning to Scotland to accept a position as an Advanced Fellow in Technology for Experimental and Observational Physics (TEOPS), University of Glasgow with Scottish Universities Physics alliance (SUPA). In June 2008 Calum returned to Caltech to work with LIGO again, this time as a Systems Engineer.
With LIGO Calum is working on ongoing R&D program as well as the implementation phase of a major technology upgrade to the observatory. The majority of his time, as a systems engineer is spent performing system design tradeoffs.

As part of Calum’s TEOPS job he liaises on all relevant experimental research areas and co-ordinate both knowledge transfer and interdisciplinary activities.

 

 

Xu Wang, Senior Lecturer

Dr. Xu Wang is a Senior Lecturer in EPS, Heriot Watt University. His research interests include fiber optic communication networks (optical code division multiplexing, optical packet switching), semiconductor laser, integrated photonic devices and fiber optic signal processing. His group is working on novel photonic network based on optical code technology (collaborating with Osaka University and NICT of Japan, and Rome University, Italy) and integrated photonic devices for optical communication and optical signal processing applications (collaborating with Chinese Academy of Science).