Save the Date: SUPA Annual Gathering: 22 May 2024

On 30th September 2016 Researchers from across SUPA took part in Explorathon2016, Scotland’s contribution to European researcher’s night. A one night celebration of research, Explorathon was an extravaganza of discovery, debate and entertainment. Events were held in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews. 

In St Andrews, Valerie Bentivegna (Dundee) presented her biophysics research as standup comedy in a Bright Club set. Helen Cammack, Jonathan Keeling, Brendon Lovett, Kyle Ballantine and Aidan Strathearn (St Andrews), presented “Quantum digits and dances” at the Byre theatre, explaining the mysteries of quantum mechanics. 

In Edinburgh Charlotte Desvages and Reggie Harrision from the acoustics group demonstrated the physics of musical instruments at the “Curiosity Forest”. 

In 2015 the universe was officially proven to be weird. After many decades of research, a series of experiments showed that distant, entangled objects can seemingly interact with each other through what Albert Einstein famously dismissed as “Spooky action at a distance”.  

A new experiment by an international team led by Heriot-Watt researcher Dr Alessandro Fedrizzi has now found that the universe is even weirder than that: entangled objects do not cause each other to behave the way they do.

Distinguishing cause from effect comes naturally to us. PhD student Martin Ringbauer from the University of Queensland explains, “Picture yourself in a room where someone is flicking a light switch. Intuition and experience lets you establish a simple causal model: the switch causes the lights to turn on and off. In this case, correlation implies causation.”

“If we could entangle two lights, you would see them turn on and off at random, regardless of how far apart they are, with no obvious switch and in perfect lockstep. Einstein’s preferred explanation of this mysterious effect was that there must be a hidden light switch which acts as a common cause for our entangled lights.”

An ERA-NET competition on photonic sensing launched on 1st September, with a closing date for stage 1 proposals on 5th December 2016. ERA-NET is a European scheme to build cooperation and coordination of research activities carried out at national or regional level in the Member States. In practical terms this means that activity is funded in each country at the national level, in the UK this is through Innovate.

The photonic sensing competition is open to R&D project consortia consisting of a minimum of two separate legal partners from at least two different participating countries and/or regions as follows:

• Austria
• Flanders Region (Belgium)
• Germany
• Israel
• Poland
• Portugal
• Turkey
• Tuscany Region (Italy) and
• United Kingdom

The objective of this call is to strengthen the research and development of photonic techniques for the technology readiness levels (TRL) 3-6 (proof of concept to technology demonstration in relevant environment). The competition is aimed at the most relevant sensing technologies with the highest impact on the human life. The following five application areas are in scope:

As a physics graduate student in Scotland, you are a SUPA student. This gives you the benefit of being part of a grouping of eight physics departments/schools, and the additional opportunities provided by the SUPA Graduate School. Our goal is to help you to become the best physics graduate students in the world.

The SUPA Graduate School provides you with video conferenced lectures – in the newly upgraded rooms at each university – bringing the expertise of eight universities to your doorstep. Please read through the SUPA Graduate School Student Brochure which contains details of all the courses, what you are expected to complete, and all the information you need to know about being SUPA.

You will most likely be attending several induction events around this time – your local physics department/school, college, university, possibly CDT, and more. These events will provide you with a wealth of information that is designed to help you get the most out of your time as a post-graduate student.

Razorbill Instruments is a start-up company that makes cryogenic compatible products that are used as the critical part in various physics experiments. We are, in a very real sense, a SUPA company. Of our three founders, Jack Barraclough, Cliff Hicks and me, Cliff was a SUPA researcher when the company was formed and Jack and I were just graduating from SUPA’s very own Condensed Matter CDT. Ever since the company was officially founded – at the end of 2014 – we’ve kept these very close ties to SUPA. 

HORIBA Jobin Yvon IBH recently marked the official opening of their new premises on Finneston Street Glasgow. Horiba Jobin Yvon IBH Ltd was formed in 2003 when the Strathclyde University spin-off company IBH merged with Horiba Jobin Yvon. Formed in 1819 Jobin Yvon is one of the oldest names in Spectroscopy and IBH are one of the pioneers of physics spin-offs in Scotland having been incorporated in 1977. IBH is now the World’s leading supplier of fluorescence lifetime systems, which, along with fluorescence microscopy and plate readers, are the most rapidly growing parts of the whole fluorescence market. 

The European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder mission has demonstrated the technology needed to build a space-based gravitational wave observatory.

In what has been an exceptional few months for the field of gravitational wave science, with the first direct detection having been recently announced, [link ‘first direct detection’ to newsletter article on GW detection] the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the first results from the LISA Pathfinder mission – and they exceed all expectation.

For many years the international gravitational wave community has targeted having ground and space based observatories.  The ground-based network is now operating with mind-boggling sensitivity, and continually improving, such that we have now made the first direct detections of gravitational waves.  But we are only just scratching the surface of the scientific rewards to be harvested from decades of research to date.

A research group (Applied Optics and Photonics) led by Professor Duncan Hand at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh has developed a laser-based process for the generation of phase holographic structures directly onto the surface of metal and glass substrates.  The holograms are generated by either only melting or a combination of melting and evaporation, with sub-micron depth control of the hologram individual features (called pixels).  The target application of these ‘tamper-proof’ holograms is security marking of high value products and components in order to reduce the trade in counterfeit goods.

Members of the Institute for Gravitational Research (IGR) and the School on Engineering have published an article in Nature titled: “Measurement of the Earth Tides with a MEMS Gravimeter”. The Earth tides are the elastic deformation of the Earth caused by the changing phase of the Sun and the Moon, and the Glasgow microelectromechanical system – or MEMS - is the first such device to measure this phenomenon (see figure 1). This measurement was possible because the device has an incredible stability compared to existing MEMS accelerometers or seismometers. Consequently it is the first MEMS accelerometer that can be classed as a gravimeter. The MEMS device is etched from a single piece of silicon and consists of a central proof mass suspended from three arched anti-springs (see figure 1). The proof mass moves in response to changing gravitational acceleration and the motion is monitored using a simple optical shadow sensor (see figure 2). The combination of the soft springs, the heavy proof mass, and the accuracy of the motion sensor allows the device to measure changes in little g of 40 parts per billion in an integration time of 1 second (40 μGal/√Hz).