The October 2011 research newsletter
Editorial
We have a bumper issue as it has been a busy time for Strathclyde Physics researchers. Over the summer, it has been a season for meetings and summer schools. Strathclyde played host to two prestigious Scottish Universities Summer Schools in Physics, SUSSP67 on Quantum information and Coherence, and SUSSP68 on Laser-Plasma Interactions and Application. On an even greater scale, Glasgow played host to ICNS9, which had over 1000 participants. The summer also saw the NanoTP theory work group 2011 meeting (WG4) at Strathclyde. We're also happy to welcome new arrivals and appointments.
[DO]
Ross Priory postgraduate conference
The postgraduate conference for 1st year PhD students was held at Ross Priory on 31st August. There was a full programme of talks and credit goes to all the speakers for high quality presentations. The prizes for best talks were awarded to Shuailong Zhang (IoP) and Kathryn Humphrey (ABP). Next day, it was the turn of the 2nd years at the poster session held in the Graham Hills Building. Prizes for the best posters were awarded to Aline Dinkelaker (Photonics) and Jennifer Moore (BCP). Congratulations to all prizewinners, thanks to all who participated and particular thanks to Marionanne for assistance with organisation of both events.
[GRMR]
SUSSP67: Quantum Information and Coherence Report
The school banquet, held in the Barony Hall, was one of a number of social occasions that allowed attendees to make valuable contacts.
Members of the Optics Division organised a SUSSP Summer School at Strathclyde between 28th July and 9th August. Over 150 junior researchers who attended experienced the benefits of the cumulative lecturing expertise of 14 major international research stars. One of the features of the school was the 'grilling' that the lecturers received during and after their lectures (and in some cases are still receiving).
Poster prize winner, Linda Sansoni, Marco del Rey, Craig Benko, Adetunmise Dada (pictured), and Carolin Hahn, were each given the opportunity to give a short presentation of their research to their fellow students.
There was also a full social programme exposing the delegates to the delights of Glasgow and surrounds during their extended stay, and ensuring that all went back to their home institutions tired, happy and with new friends and colleagues. For more details see the SUSSP67 website.
[JJ]
SUSSP68: Laser-Plasma Interactions and Applications Report
The department hosted the 68th Scottish Universities Summer School in Physics (SUSSP) and combined NATO Advanced Study Institute on Laser-Plasma Interactions and Applications from 14 to 26 August 2011. The School was attended by over 130 students and lecturers from 18 countries.
It was organised as an intensive, immersive programme designed with 40 formal lectures, discussion sessions and a public outreach lecture. It also included a number of social events, including trips to the Edinburgh Fringe festival, Stirling castle, a boat trip on Loch Katrine and a banquet with whisky tasting at The Barony. Further details can be found on the SUSSP68 website.
[PM]
When nano met spectro
The Nano Meets Spectroscopy conference, held at NPL 15-16 September, lived up to its billing and proved to be a resounding success. Registration was closed early at the capacity of 130 attendees. The 22 talks by leading international speakers covered hot topics such as plasmon controlled fluorescence, carbon nanotubes, tip-enhanced Raman, single-molecule detection and super-resolution imaging. Sponsorship was gratefully received from SUPA, the RSC, IoP and ESF and 10 companies were represented in the instrument exhibition. Student Poster Prizes were presented by Professor J R Lakowicz of the University of Maryland. Papers from the meeting are to be published by the Institute of Physics in a Special Issue of Measurement Science and Technology.
The meeting was chaired by David Birch and the organising committee included Duncan Graham and Karen Faulds of Chemistry, Alex Knight of NPL and Cait MacPhee of the University of Edinburgh. The conference diner was held at the Park Hotel. All of the delegates responding to a feedback poll said the event exceeded or fulfilled their expectations. Quotes from delegates included “Great event, hope you organize it again”, “The scientific quality was very high and the talks were very stimulating”, “Interesting mix of talks and subjects, and top speakers gathered together.”
[DJSB]
ICNS9 Conference Report
The 9th International Conference on Nitride Semiconductors (ICNS-9) was held at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre on 10-15th July 2011. The conference was co-chaired by Prof. Rob Martin (Strathclyde Physics) and Prof. Peter Parbrook (Tyndall National Institute, Cork), a former PhD student in the Semiconductor Spectroscopy and Devices (SSD) group in the Department.
Gratuitous kilt-wearing by past and present members of the SSD research group at the conference dinner held at Hampden Park.
The Conference was successful in attracting over 1000 participants from 42 different countries. In addition to the packed programme of talks and posters outlining recent developments in group III nitride research, there was a major trade exhibition and a number of public outreach events.
[PRE]
Ballistic focusing of laser-accelerated protons
In recent years, high power lasers have emerged as an attractive driver of ion acceleration. Beams of laser-accelerated ions possess unique characteristics that are unattainable using existing conventional ion accelerators - the ion pulse is extremely bright and highly laminar. For these reasons, together with the well-known versatility of lasers, high power laser-ion sources have potentially wide-ranging applications in science, medicine, security and industry.
One of the main challenges in terms of the application of laser-ion sources is to overcome the inherent large divergence of the ion beam. In recent work, published in Physical Review Letters 106, 225003 (2011), researchers from the department (David Carroll, Mark Quinn and Paul McKenna) in collaboration with groups from Queen's University Belfast and the Central Laser Facility at RAL have demonstrated a technique for ballistic focusing of laser-accelerated protons over a wide energy range up to 25 MeV, whilst preserving the beam laminarity. The scheme enables high proton flux densities to be achieved, suitable for heating secondary materials to warm dense matter states for example, and enables substantial flexibility for subsequent proton beam transport over large distances.
[PM]
Gravity's Shadow
Nicholas Lockerbie gave an invited seminar at the W.W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at the University of Stanford, USA: “High-precision displacement sensing (foreshadowing the future?)”
Measurements made on a test mass at MIT
The talk examined the fundamentals of optical shadow sensors for linear displacement, as developed for Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory). They detect vibrations in the fused-silica suspension fibres of LIGO's test masses/mirrors, and a sensitivity of (69 ± 13) picometres (RMS)/Hz, at the fibres' fundamental resonant frequency (500 Hertz) has been demonstrated over a measuring span of ± 0.1 millimetres.
[NL]
Leverhulme trust funding for multidisciplinary research
The Leverhulme Trust has awarded funding worth ˜£170k to Paul Hoskisson (SIPBS) and Neil Hunt for a joint project aimed at studying the interactions between anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug molecules and their target proteins.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is estimated to kill up to 2 million people per year and the global disease burden is in the region of 15 million people. TB is often associated with poverty and underdeveloped nations or centres of urban decay where the emergence of drug-resistant strains in the clinic means that the development of new anti-TB drugs is crucial.
Understanding protein-drug interactions will be important in achieving this and the 3 yr project will employ protein-labelling strategies and applications of ultrafast 2D-IR spectroscopy to examine the role of Hydrogen bonds and protein structural fluctuations in the drug binding process. This information will then be used to inform the design of alternative drug molecules in collaboration with medicinal chemists at Strathclyde.
[NH]
Short announcements
New Grants
A. Cunningham/G. Robb, 1/6/11 - 30/6/12,
NERC (Studentship) £71,145
N. Hunt, 1/8/11-30/9/12, Diamond Light
Source Ltd (Industrial), £44,209
N. Hunt, 1/10/11-30/9-14, Leverhulme Trust,
FEC £414,433, Awarded £170,803
D. Jaroszynski, 1/10/11-30/9/18,
EPSRC (DTC), Awarded £1,927,885
P. McKenna, 1/10/11-31/3/15,
STFC, Awarded £15,000
P. McKenna, 1/10/11-30/9/16, EPSRC Fellowship, FEC £1,614,066, Awarded £1,330,509
R.W. Martin, EPSRC - (Lighting the Future),
Awarded £643,016
K. Ronald, 1/01/11-1/10/12, MBDA
(Studentships), Awarded £30,000
E. Riis, 1/9/11-30-3/12, ESA,
FEC £40,765, Awarded £21,525
S. Kuhr, 1/10/11-30/9/16, ERC Fellowship,
FEC £1,271,780, Awarded £1,183,347
N. Langford, 1/10/09-30/9/13, Cascade (Industrial), Awarded £20,000
Appointments
We congratulate David McKee on being appointed to a MASTS Senior Lecturship under the platform and sensors theme.
Arrivals
We are pleased to welcome Prof. Maxim Fedorov, who has taken up the SUPA2 Chair in Physics and Life Sciences and joins our Nanoscience Division from Oct 2011. Previously Maxim was a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (MPI f. Mathematik in den Naturwissenschaften) in Leipzig, Germany. Prior to that he held posts in Cambridge, Dublin and the Russian Academy of Science.
His research interests are wide-ranging and interdisciplinary and we look forward to many opportunities for collaboration and also KE. Maxim's expertise covers the interface between computational physical chemistry and biophysics and current work applies novel modelling techniques within Integral Equation Theory and Molecular Mechanics to different challenging problems of molecular sciences, such as ion hydration, supramolecular self-assembly, ionic liquids and ion effects on biopolymer stability.
[RWM]
A belated welcome to Prof. Stefan Kuhr who joins us as the SUPA2 Professor of Experimental Quantum Information earlier this year. Stefan was previously at the Max-Plank Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching with which he still retains an affiliation. Stefan's research is described in more detail below.
[DO]
Visitors
We welcome Brian Dalton visiting from the Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.
Awards
Gian-Luca Oppo was awarded the Occhialini Medal and Prize for "...novel insights into spatio-temporal dynamics of lasers, nonlinear and quantum optical systems, achieved through the development and application of powerful techniques for small-scale computing."
(Left-right) Gian-Luca Oppo receiving the Occhialini medal from Dr. Robert Kirby-Harris (Chief Executive of the IOP) and Prof. Luisa Cifarelli (President of the European Physical Society & Italian Physical Society).
The Medal and Prize are jointly awarded by the UK Institute of Physics and the Italian Physical Society in memory of the eminent scientist, Giuseppe Occhialini (1907-1993) who worked in both Italy and the UK. He made distinguished contributions to the Nobel prizes of both P. Blackett (1948) and C. Powell (1950). The Occhialini medal is presented for distinguished work carried out within the 10 years preceding the award and is accompanied by a prize of €3000.
The impact of the award was immediately felt by the audience in L'Aquila when the local power station collapsed only for the duration of Gian-Luca's acceptance speech. Occhialini said that he did not like to be interviewed since the recorder would report what he said and not what he wanted to say. Since no recording is available of Gian-Luca's speech the only record is his hand-written notes which say what he wanted to say and not what he said due to the lack of light at a prize awarded for optics.
[GLO]
ERC Grant for Experimental Quantum Information
Stefan Kuhr, our newly arrived SUPA Professor in Experimental Quantum Information, has been successful in winning a prestigious and highly competitive European Research Council (ERC) starting grant. The €1.4M project is entitled, "Single-atom-resolved detection and manipulation of strongly correlated fermions in an optical lattice"
Stefan's research will offer clues to some of the mechanisms, such as magnetism and superconductivity, which lie behind the way that solid matter behaves. Using a high resolution optical microscope, he will be exploring ways of identifying and manipulating ultracold fermions in an optical lattice formed by laser beam - fermions are one of the two groups into which all particles are divided.
Single atoms trapped in an optical lattice can be individually addressed by a high resolution optical microscope.
Stefan has previously conducted similar research on the other group, bosons, in which he was able to achieve unprecedented control of bosonic particles with single-atom sensitivity. His new programme is designed to accomplish, for the first time, the same with fermionic atoms. This has not so far been done, partly because their behaviour makes them more difficult to cool to the temperatures where they can be manipulated. The ERC grant is an essential building block to establish his new research labs at Strathclyde, the first of which will be officially opened in late-October.
[SK]
Midas touch goes nano
Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), which occurs between donors and acceptors in close proximity, is referred to as the 'spectroscopic ruler' and has been applied to a broad range of research, including distance distributions, metabolic sensing, protein and cell function. The effective range of FRET is reported to be typically less than 80Å, as limited by the nature of the dipole-dipole mechanism. Using metallic particles as acceptors, this constraint in the length scale of detection can be extended dramatically. Recent work in Photophysics group demonstrated energy transfer between 4'-6-Diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI), a commonly used DNA label, and gold nanoparticles, as published in Applied Physics Letters [1].
Gold nanorods enhance the energy transfer with DAPI compared to nanospheres, shortening the fluorescence lifetime.
Using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscope (FLIM), the authors studied the energy transfer under two-photon excitation. They found that gold nanorods provide more efficient energy transfer than gold nanospheres. This transfer enhancement effect is attributed to the overlapping of longitudinal surface Plasmon mode of gold nanorods with the excitation wavelength. The potential for gold nanoparticle-dye energy transfer combinations in cells was demonstrated in a FLIM study of gold nanorods internalized by MDCK cells. The FLIM image (above) shows the shortening of DAPI lifetime, indicating energy transfer between the dye and gold nanorods.
In addition to extending the upper range limit, gold nanoparticles are in many ways superior to organic dye molecules in energy transfer application as they are photostable, low toxicity and can also be easily conjugated to biological structures. This is especially true for gold nanorods, where their strong two-photon luminescence (TPL) arising from surface plasmon resonance, makes them excellent fluorescence probes in biological imaging. The energy transfer shall provides more detailed information in biological studies, especially when combined with the advantages of two-photon excitation microscopy and more intense TPL from gold nanorods.
[1] Yinan Zhang, David J. S. Birch, and Yu Chen, Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 103701 (2011), also in Sept. 15, 2011 issue of Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research and Sept. 19, 2011 issue of Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology.
[YC]
Phoenix at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden
Since 2007 the University of Strathclyde Physics Dept. has collaborated with the Helmholtz-Zentrum, Dresden and in 2008 the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA) provided funding to help support a new mono-energetic photon facility at Dresden (Phoenix)
The team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf supported by scientists from the University of Strathclyde and the Helmholtz-Institut Jena demonstrated the interaction of the two large scale research facilities ELBE and DRACO. ELBE is a superconducting electron linear accelerator with energies up to 40 MeV and 1 mA current.
DRACO is a short pulse high intensity Ti:Sapphire laser system with intensities up to 150 TW. Due to the availability of this amount of laser power the linear and nonlinear regimes of TBS can be explored. The Phoenix facility is shown below.
The Phoenix Facility collides ultra-intense laser pulses with electron bunches to produce mono-energetic X-rays.
In the experiment, electron bunches of 24 MeV collided with laser pulses (800nm) with an intensity of about 2x1016 W cm-2 in the linear regime. The resulting x-ray pulses have photon energies of around 13.5 keV. The analysis is at a very preliminary stage but suffice it to say that monoenergetic x-rays were obtained using CdTe detectors and at the energy predicted.
Spectrum TBS - CdTe Detector. Electronic pile-up, vanishes when 20 micrometre Ta foil inserted indicates no harmonics
This is just the first stage of establishing a back scattering facility in Dresden and the experience gained will allow us to investigate non-linear effects in the future using Phoenix and SCAPA. The proposed large facility ELI (Bucharest) back scattered photons up to MeV will be produced allowing us to carry out photo-nuclear experiments with our other SUPA partners in UWS.
This is indicative that SUPA not only supports projects in Scotland but also world leading projects abroad.
[KWDL]
