Research Areas
The group are currently working in the following research areas:
Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering Microscopy
Optical microscopy is an indispensable tool for cell biology. Different microscopy methods are currently available and continuous effort is devoted to develop new techniques with improved sensitivity, selectivity and/or spatial resolution.
Dephasing processes in InGaAs quantum dots
Coherent light-matter interaction in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) is receiving increasing attention due to possible solid-state implementations in the emerging field of quantum information processing.
Functional Material and integration
The optoelectronic material of the future will have to support a variety of functions on a single chip. In some cases this will involve complete integration of a system on a chip, in other cases it will mean components with additional functionality or with properties tailored to suit the application. This involves the exploration of the physics of the light matter interactions in these materials and devices.
InAs Quantum Dots, Dilute Nitrides and Dilute Nitride / Antimonides
Lasers incorporating self assembled quantum dot structures, in which the electrons' motion is confined in all three spatial directions, have already demonstrated significant performance advantages over the more conventional quantum well structures.
InGaAlN Quantum Well Heterostructures
Progress in III-Nitride-based optoelectronics is critical for a wide range of technologies including solid state lighting and illumination, ultra-high density optical storage, bio-chemical sensing and medical applications.
InP / GaInP Quantum Dot Lasers
The aim is to develop short wavelength quantum dot lasers for operation at the technologically important wavelengths in the red part of the spectrum. This will make use of a new quantum dot material system of GaInP growth in AlGaInP.
Living Optics
‘Producing truly integrated platforms in which biology, optics and structure combine to give a holistic system read-out’
Multi-photon Microscopy for Imaging in Cell Biology
With the introduction of new excitation/detection schemes in microscopy, such as confocal, multiphoton and total internal reflection, and the advances in fluorophore technology, fluorescence microscopy is today the most rapidly growing light microscopy technique, both in medical and biological sciences.
Nonlinear optical spectroscopy of single excitonic states
Quantum computers [1, 2] will be able to perform calculations that classical computers will never be able to do. The basic elements of quantum computer are Qbits that, as ordinary bits, have two states. However, in contrast to ordinary bits, qbits can exist in quantum superposition of two states.
Red Emitting Quantum Well Lasers
The development of (AlGa)InP quantum well lasers has been driven by the requirement for short wavelength sources in optical disc information storage systems, the general utility of compact, battery powered visible sources and use as pump sources in solid state laser systems.
Semiconductor Optically Active Nanocrystals
Colloidal semiconductor quantum dots (QD) or nanocrystals provide a useful alternative to molecular fluorophores in cell lineage and population growth studies.
Structured Semiconductor Photonics
Integrating laser chips with microfluidics for novel solutions in cell based analyses.
Ultrafast dynamics in quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifiers
Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) are considered important devices for optical communications being low cost, having small size, high gain, and large amplitude and phase nonlinearities. However, slow dynamics of the gain nonlinearities in conventional bulk and quantum-well SOAs (mainly due to carrier heating) usually limits the performance of these amplifiers for optical signal processing at high bit rates.
Optical Biosensor based on Whispering Gallery Mode Technology
Optical biosensors capable of detecting unlabelled molecules have become valuable tools in life sciences as well as in drug discovery over the last 10 years. Vollmer et al., (2002) provided proof-of-principle for a biosensor, claimed to have unprecedented sensitivity for molecular detection that exploited shifts in optical resonances in a single transparent dielectric microparticle (specifically a 300 mm diameter spherical glass bead) to detect adsorption of bovine serum albumin protein deposition.