Week 4: Overview of The Optics Group continued...

Hello everyone,

I hope that you enjoyed Dr Matt Edgar's talk last week. To continue bringing you all up to speed with the research topics of the Optics group Dr Neal Radwell and Dr Euan Cowie will be talking about research areas which Matt only touched on last week.

Dr Neal Radwell

I'm a post-doctoral research associate in the Optics Group. I did my PhD at Strathclyde on the topic of 'Nonlinear Pattern Formation in Semi-conductor Lasers' and joined the Optics group in 2010. In those 8 years I have built the cold atom MOT and developed the dynamic SpOT and spatial EIT experiments with Sonja. I have worked with Miles to develop a single-pixel microscope and hybrid LiDAR system. The highlight of my more independent work is the Fresnel Cone research, where we show that simple glass cones can generate useful polarisation structures and we are developing technologies in polarimetry and microscopy based on Fresnel Cones. 

I'm going to be discussing the research from the 'Atoms Lab' lead by Sonja. The overarching research theme is 'Structured atom-light interactions' which covers topics from active and passive beam shaping, polarisation shaping, warm atomic vapour experiments, and culminating with out Cold Atom MOT in which we use structured light to spatially pattern atomic properties, which we hope will provide new understanding or methods for quantum memories.

Dr Euan Cowie

I’ve been a research associate in Optics since 2015.  I come from a background of nuclear and particle physics having attained my PhD in 2012 working in the Nuclear Physics Group here at Glasgow, before moving to the experimental Particle Physics group at the University of Bristol.  In both positions I worked on optical systems and sensors – specifically solid radiator Cherenkov detectors with ultra-fast Microchannel Plate PMTs. 

Upon joining the Optics group I dropped the sensors side of my work and focussed on the geometrical optics.  Here myself and Dr Johannes Courtial have been investigating novel structured optical systems, we call them pixelated optics, in which arrays of micro- or milli-metre sized telescopes are constructed into small Telescope Windows.  These can perform very general laws of refraction, allowing the construction of weird and wonderful purely-optical devices.  However my primary focus has been on using them as Low Vision Aids (LVAs), and it’s the development of this aspect I’ll go into detail on.

The talk will take place on Thursday 26th July at 3:00PM in Kelvin Room 257.

Snacks will be provided afterwards!
Kyle