Personal Chair, Head of School
- About
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- Office Address
- School/Department
- School of Natural and Computing Sciences
Biography
I joined the University of Aberdeen in September 2022 as the Head of School of Natural and Computing Sciences. I am a physicist by training having studied Laser Physics and Optoelectronics at St. Andrews, followed by a PhD in Atomic and Laser Physics, also at St. Andrews. I then briefly left academia to join the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl) working on optical imaging technologies.
I returned to St. Andrews in 2002 as a postdoctoral research fellow working on cold atom physics before being awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2003 to work on holographic optical trapping and beam shaping.
In 2007 I joined the University of Dundee as a Lecturer, and held a variety of roles, including Head of Physics and Associate Dean Research in the School of Science and Engineering.
In 2018 I moved to Australia to take up a Chair and act as the Director, Research Programs in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney.
My research work focusses on applications of optics in areas such as optical trapping and microscopy. I am interested in making use of these tools in the biomedical science and in environmental sciences (especially in aerosol analysis). I dabble in areas such as THz beam shaping and microfluidics.
I have taught a range of courses throughout my career from first year to research postgraduate. I have been fortunate to teach across disciplinary boundaries, teaching to students taking degrees in topics such as product design to quantum computing.
Qualifications
- MSci (Hons) Laser Physics and Optoelectronics1997 - University of St. Andrews
- PhD Physics2001 - University of St. Andrews
External Memberships
- Member of the Institute of Physics (MInstP)
- Senior Member of the Optica
- Chartered Physicist (CPhys)
- Research
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Research Areas
Accepting PhDs
I am currently accepting PhDs in Physics.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.
Research Specialisms
- Photonics and Optical Physics
- Physics
- Physical Chemistry
- Biophysical Science
- Applied Physics
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
Currently my teaching consists of honours project supervision on the physics program, but am open to supervising projects from students in any subject area interested in experimental or computational optics and photonics, including biophotonics.
In 2023 I will be starting a new Optics 3rd year course, aimed at students studying physics.
- Publications
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Parameter exploration of optically trapped liquid aerosols
Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, vol. 82, no. 5, 051123Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.82.051123
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Modelling of optical traps for aerosols
Working Papers: Preprint PapersGeneration of optofluidic microchannels in ice
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference ProceedingsObservation of bistability of trapping position in aerosol optical tweezers
Journal of the Optical Society of America B: Optical Physics, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 582-591Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.27.000582
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Fourty years of optical manipulation
Optics and Photonics News, vol. 21, pp. 20-26Contributions to Specialist Publications: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OPN.21.3.000020
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Direct observation of the transfer of orbital angular momentum to metal particles from a focused circularly polarized Gaussian beam
Optics Express, vol. 17, no. 25, pp. 23316-23322Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.17.023316
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Thermo-optical resonance locking of an optically trapped salt-water microdroplet
New Journal of Physics, vol. 11, 103041Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/11/10/103041
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Mixing via thermocapillary generation of flow patterns inside a microfluidic drop
New Journal of Physics, vol. 11, 075033Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/11/7/075033
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Radius measurements of optically trapped aerosols through Brownian motion
New Journal of Physics, vol. 11, 063022Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/11/6/063022
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Underdamped modes in a hydrodynamically coupled microparticle system
New Journal of Physics, vol. 11, 053007Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/11/5/053007
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Manipulation and characterisation of accumulation and coarse mode aerosol particles using a Bessel beam trap
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, vol. 11, no. 47, pp. 11333-11339Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/b914165k
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Modelling aerosol optical tweezers
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/ota.2009.otub3
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Spectroscopic characterisation and manipulation of arrays of sub-picolitre aerosol droplets
Lab on a Chip, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 521-528Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/b814545h
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
The influence of resonant absorption and heating on the equilibrium size of aqueous-solute aerosol droplets
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, vol. 11, no. 33, pp. 7312-7317Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/b904690a
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Towards airborne optofluidics: Optical manipulation techniques for airborne particles
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ISOT.2009.5326145
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Fiber based optical trapping of aerosols
Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 19, pp. 14550-14560Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.16.014550
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Thermocapillary manipulation of droplets using holographic beam shaping: Microfluidic pin ball
Applied Physics Letters, vol. 93, no. 3, 034107Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2952374
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Phase dynamics of continuous topological upconversion in vortex beams
Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 15, pp. 11411-11422Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.16.011411
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Manipulating Aerosols with Light
Imaging & Microscopy, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 50-52Contributions to Journals: ArticlesOptical trapping and spectral analysis of aerosols with a supercontiuum laser source
Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 11, pp. 7655-7664Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.16.007655
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Trapping solid aerosols with optical tweezers: A comparison between gas and liquid phase optical traps
Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 11, pp. 7739-7747Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.16.007739
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Accurate phase mapping of nondiffracting singular beams
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.794195
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Aerosol tweezing with a super-continuum laser beam
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.793726
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Dynamics of airborne tweezing
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.794832
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Holographic control of droplet microfluidics
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.794855
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus