What's On at UWA

I will be talking about the NPL's efforts and outlook for the next few years in determining the Boltzmann constant (k) with ~1 part-per-million uncertainty using a resonant acoustic method. This may be of particular interest to some people in Physics as there is currently a measurement of k in progress in the basement performed using a completely different method. Prof. Machin will also be talking about developments in thermometry at high temperatures (>1000 C) using thermocouples and self-validating techniques for extreme environments.

Magnetic thin films with their magnetic moments spontaneously aligned perpendicular to the film plane are of great interest for their practical applications. This configuration is applied in perpendicular recording media with increased data storage density. New materials with a larger tendency to align perpendicular to the plane (i.e. with larger perpendicular anisotropy) could further increase the storage density.

One way to induce perpendicular anisotropy is by distorting the lattice of single crystalline films. In cubic lattices the distortion along the c axis lowers the symmetry causing an increased orbital moment and the spin-orbit coupling forces the moment to align perpendicular to the film plane. A large perpendicular anisotropy in tetragonally distorted Fe100-xCox alloys was theoretically predicted for bulk materials [1]. Experimentally this was achieved by growing thin films on substrates with mismatched lattice parameters such as Rh and Ir(001) [2]. The interface between the substrate and the film can significantly influence the magnetic behaviour but was not considered in the theoretical prediction. Furthermore the distortion can be expected to relax as the film is made thicker and approaches bulk-like behaviour but the mechanism of this relaxation remains unclear.

The Fe100-xCox /Ir(001) system has been studied in an attempt to understand the correlation between film structure, nature of the interface and structural relaxation to the magnetic properties. An onset of ferromagnetic ordering and the increase and decay of the perpendicular anisotropy with the composition and thickness were observed. Comparison between the magnetic behaviour of Fe100-xCox on Ir and Rh(001) surfaces highlight the peculiar properties of the Ir(001) surface and may shed light on the mechanism for inducing perpendicular anisotropy by tetragonal distortion.

[1] T. Burkert et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 027203 (2004). [2] F. Yildiz et al., J. Appl. Phys. 105, 07E129 (2009).

The 10 most engaging 3 Minute Thesis presenters selected at the UWA semi-finals on 21st July, will compete for prizes and the opportunity to represent UWA at the Australia-New Zealand 3MT competition in September. Please come along to support the presenters and vote for your "People's Choice".

Presentations over this two-day event will cover comparisons of environments for the dawn of life on Earth and comparing with the possibility of life on the red Planet, Mars.

Written submissions from teachers, scientists, engineers, social theorists, managers, writers and artists are welcomed. Full papers will be reviewed and published in accordance with the DEEWR guidelines.

Topics include (but are not limited to):

Mars - Earth analogue comparisons, strategies and technologies for surface exploration, field science for exploration, recruiting the next generation of explorers, astronauts, scientists and engineers, educational needs for a spacefaring culture, the Mars Society as a culture, new concepts in project management, remote-area engineering, Mars as an inspiration to science students and artists.

The De Laeter Youth Lecture is organized annually by the WA Branch of the Australian Institute of Physics. It is named in honour of the late Emeritus Professor John De Laeter. Not only was Professor De Laeter one of Western Australia's most noted scientists, but he also had an enormous impact on education is Western Australia. A minor planet was named after Professor De Laeter in recognition of his research in astrophysics and, in 1992, he was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his contributions to science, education and industry. He received a Eureka Prize in 2005, and a Clunies Ross Science and Technology Award in 2006.

A new perspective on renormalization is taken by use of an iterative wavelet based averaging as suggested by Stephane Mallat. This replaces the band limited Fourier transforms used currently. The result is a hierarchy of fundamental excitations of the system based on the complexity of the interaction (the number of scales) and the size of the interactions (the scale sizes). The system can then be second quantised with the state of the system given by occupation numbers or the number of each of the fundamental excitations of the system. This gives a natural metric for the state of the system (in terms of these occupation numbers), and a complete specification of the dynamics by the renormalized action (which is diagonal) in this renormalized coordinate system. It should be noted that the wavelet based averaging needs to respect the group symmetries of the dynamics. This method also has application to the understanding of complex systems, as it gives a metric for complexity; and has application to the identification of image texture.

BIO: Michael E. Glinsky received a B.S. degree in physics from Case Western Reserve University in 1983 and a Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of California, San Diego in 1991. His doctoral research on magnetized pure electron plasmas was recognized by the American Physical Society as the outstanding thesis in the United States (1993 Simon Ramo Award). Before enrolling in graduate school as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, he worked as a geophysicist for Shell Oil Company. After graduate school, he worked as a Department of Energy Distinguished Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 5 years. More recently he worked for three years at the Shell E&P Technology Co. doing research on Bayesian AVO and 4D inversion. After being the Section Leader of Quantitative Interpretation for BHP Billiton Petroleum, he moved into the BHP Billiton corporate centre where he was Manager, Resource R&D. Currently, he is CEO Science Leader at CSIRO, and an Adjunct Professor of Physics at University of Western Australia. He has published over 25 papers in the refereed scientific literature on subjects as varied as plasma physics, signal processing for oil exploration, x-ray diagnostics, application of exterior calculus to theoretical mechanics, and laser biological tissue interactions. He received the 2004 CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement for his research on petroleum reservoir characterization.

UWA opens up the whole campus to the public.

Come and find out about the courses on offer, valuable research, community programs, and facilities...all mixed with a day full of lots of fun activities for everyone!

Over the next decade or so, extremely large, ground-based telescopes will be built to probe the furthest reaches of the universe - back to the earliest times in its evolution, and through its most energetic events. These instruments will span the optical and radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and the audio band of the gravitational wave spectrum. WA is on the verge of hosting two of these three telescopes - the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope and the LIGO-Australia gravitational wave telescope.

Over the next decade or so, extremely large, ground-based telescopes will be built to probe the furthest reaches of the universe - back to the earliest times in its evolution, and through its most energetic events. These instruments will span the optical and radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and the audio band of the gravitational wave spectrum. WA is on the verge of hosting two of these three telescopes – the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope and the LIGO-Australia gravitational wave telescope. In this talk we will explain how a gravitational wave telescope works and illuminate the exciting physics, astrophysics and cosmology that can be done with a global array of such telescopes.

Professor McClelland, a former graduate of the University of Western Australia, is currently Head of the Department of Quantum Science and Director of the Centre for Gravitational Physics at The Australian National University.

Professor Blair is Director of the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre at the University of Western Australia.

To register please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/event/1808452129

Interested in working for the Australian government intelligence agencies? Come along and find out more!

Australian citizens in all disciplines.

The Postgraduate and Honours Expo showcases a host of opportunities for further study, including honours and postgraduate coursework and research possibilities.

Discover the courses each faculty has to offer, learn about postgraduate scholarships, attend information sessions and talk to staff, honours and postgraduate students.

For more information about the Expo along with details on the presentations being held throughout the evening please go uwa.edu.au/postgradexpo

We show that a quantum scalar particle in the gravitational field of a massive body of radius R which slightly exceeds the Schwarzschild radius rs, possesses a dense spectrum of narrow resonances. In the limit R goes to rs their lifetimes tend to infinity, and one can interpret the capture of the free particle into these states as absorption. In this limit the spacing between the resonances tends to zero, which allows one to calculate the energy-averaged (optical) capture cross section. Surprisingly, for R goes to rs this cross section reproduces Unruh's black hole absorption cross section. Thus, a non-singular static metric may have black hole properties without the actual formation of a black hole.

The bound-state energy levels of a scalar particle in the static gravitational field of a massive body of radius R which slightly exceeds the Schwarzschild radius rs, are found. Bound states with zero energy (where the binding energy is equal to the rest mass of the scalar particle) only exist when a singularity occurs in the metric. Therefore, in contrast to the Coulomb case, no pairs are produced in the non-singular static metric. As pair production is a necessary condition for Hawking radiation to occur, this suggests that these objects do not Hawking radiate.

For the Florides metric the singularity occurs in the black hole limit, while for the Schwarzschild interior metric it corresponds to infinite pressure at the centre. The energy spectrum is shown to become quasi-continuous as the metric becomes singular. All levels with finite principal quantum number n collapse to zero energy.

1. Dense spectrum of resonances and particle capture in a near-black-hole metric, V. V. Flambaum, G. H. Gossel, and G. F. Gribakin, arXiv:1012.2134 Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett.

2. Energy levels of a scalar particle in a static gravitational field approaching the black hole field, G. H. Gossel, J. C. Berengut and V. V. Flambaum , Gen. Rel. Grav. 43, 2673 (2011)

What research can be performed at a synchrotron? What are WA scientists achieving at synchrotrons? What opportunities are there for cutting edge research in MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES, and for WA's INDUSTRY?

This one-day symposium, 23rd November at UWA's University Club, is suited for novices and experts alike, with focussed sessions aimed at

* HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND RESEARCHERS *

* ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS *

* INDUSTRY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT *

covering topics including:

* Medical therapy * Imaging for Cystic Fibrosis gene therapy development * Iron distribution in the heart * Structural Biology * Metalloproteins * Imaging of fossils * Forensics applications * Photoelectron spectroscopy * Corrosion Science * Meteorite studies * Precious metal ore depostion *

Prof David Parsons, Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide; Dr Mel Lintern, CSIRO Exploration and Mining; Prof Keith Nugent, University of Melbourne and Prof Andrew Peele, Latrobe University; plus 9 WA speakers

Come and find out how the Australian Synchrotron can revolutionise YOUR research.

There is no charge, but registration is essential. RSVP to [email protected] by Fri 11 November 2011.

Periodic magnetic nanostructures are attracting considerable interest because of their unique properties and potential in applications such as ultra-high density bit patterned media, logic devices and non-volatile memory. Recently, there has been a growing interest aimed at the fundamental understanding of lateral periodic magnetic composites, which have been conceived as the magnetic counterpart of a photonic crystal, with spin waves acting as the information carrier. Such periodic magnetic composites are referred to as "magnonic crystals" (MC) with unique properties that are not found in homogenous magnetic nanostructures. The first part of this talk will focus on the use of deep ultra-violet lithography technique in synthesizing coupled periodic magnetic nanostructures of varying geometrical parameters over a very large area. We have used resolution enhancement techniques to fabricate arrays of magnetic nanostructures with lateral dimensions and inter-element spacing below the conventional resolution limit of optical lithography tools [1]. The second part of the talk will discuss our work on high quality bi-component magnonic crystals [2]. The last part of the talk will focus on results of our recent systematic investigation of both the static and dynamic properties of MCs using magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements, magnetic force microscopy and broadband ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy in collaboration with Prof. Mikhail Kostylev at the University of Western Australia [3]. [1] A. O. Adeyeye, N. Singh, Journal of Physics D-Applied Physics-Topical Review, 41,153001 (2008). [2] Z. K. Wang, V. L. Zhang, H. S. Lim, S. C. Ng, M. H. Kuok, S. Jain, A. O. Adeyeye, Applied Physics Letters, 94, 083112 (2009) and ACS-Nano,4(2) , 643 (2010). [3] J. Ding, M. Kostylev, and A. O. Adeyeye Physical Review Letters 107,047205 (2011) and J. Ding, M. Kostylev, and A. O. Adeyeye Physical Review B 84, 054425 (2011)

Single photons and single atoms are important carriers of quantum information. Using a network of atoms that are coupled to one another by single photons [1], it is possible to generate a cluster state: a highly entangled state that can be used as a resource for quantum computation.

We have developed a deterministic source of single photons based on a single atom strongly coupled to an optical cavity [2]. The atom is driven to emit single photons in to the cavity mode using the coherent process of vacuum-STIRAP. Furthermore, by changing the driving laser pulse, we can precisely control the amplitude and phase of the photon wavepacket. We observe the effect of changing the phase of the photon on the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between two successive photons. Using the reverse process, we aim to reabsorb these single photons with a second atom-cavity system, thus generating an entangled state between two distant atoms.

In addition, we are working on a method to trap and control single atoms with optical tweezers [3]. The tweezers are based on a highly focussed red-detuned dipole trapping laser. The shape of the trapping beam is controlled using a spatial light modulator (SLM) in order to produce arbitrarily-shaped trapping potentials. We demonstrate the ability of this setup to trap and dynamically transport small clouds of atoms, and show how this can be integrated with a network of fibre-tip optical cavities

[1] A. Kuhn and D. Ljunggren, Cavity-based single-photon sources, Contemporary Physics 51, 289 (2010)

[2] Peter B R Nisbet-Jones et al, Highly efficient source for indistinguishable single photons of controlled shape, New J. Phys. 13 103036 (2011)

[3] Cecilia Muldoon et al, Control and Manipulation of Cold Atoms in Optical Tweezers, arXiv:1109.0657 (2011)

Conventional antennas, which are widely used to transmit radio and TV signals, can be used at optical frequencies as long as they are shrunk to nanometer-size dimensions. Optical nanoantennas possess plasmonic modes – collective oscillations of the metal's conduction electrons – that strongly enhance the coupling between light and nanoantenna and allow for manipulating light on a scale smaller than light's wavelength. Based on this ability, optical nanoantennas offer unique opportunities regarding key applications such as optical communications, photovoltaics, non-classical light emission, and sensing. From a multitude of suggested nanoantenna concepts the Yagi-Uda nanoantenna, an optical analogue of the well-established radio-frequency Yagi-Uda antenna, stands out by its efficient unidirectional light emission and enhancement.

Following a brief introduction to the emerging field of optical nanoantennas, the first part of the talk will review our recent activities on optical Yagi-Uda nanoantennas and discuss several extensions of the conventional Yagi-Uda antenna design for broadband and tunable operation for applications in nanophotonic circuits, solar cells and nanosensors.

The second part of the talk will discuss novel optical nanoantennas proposed as integrated sources of nonclassical light. We demonstrate theoretically that these nanoantennas ensure both a large broadband spontaneous emission enhancement and high collection efficiency for horizontally and vertically polarized photons emitted by a semiconductor quantum dot. The suggested nanoantenna designs make a step forward toward reliable, efficient and on-chip integrable sources of polarization entangled photons for a variety of quantum applications.

Dr. Ivan Maksymov received his PhD from Kharkov National University of Radio Electronics (Ukraine) in 2008, where he later held the positions of Lecturer and Assistant Professor. Afterwards he took a postdoc position at Institute of Optics (Palaiseau, France) where he worked on plasmonic sources of nonclassical light. Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Nonlinear Physics Centre, ANU working on theory of optical nanoantennas.

BCG is a global management consulting firm and the world's leading advisor on business strategy. We partner with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their businesses. Our customised approach combines deep insight into the dynamics of companies and markets, with close collaboration at all levels of the client organisation. This ensures that our clients achieve sustainable competitive advantage, build more capable organisations, and secure lasting results.

We have offices in Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney and would like to invite you to our on-campus presentation on full-time graduate career opportunities. This presentation will be a good opportunity for you to find out more about the high impact work we do and a terrific opportunity to meet people from the local offices of BCG.

McKinsey & Company is the world's most influential management consulting firm. In 2011 we served private companies and public sector institutions from more than 89 offices in over 50 countries. In a career with McKinsey, you will build unparalleled expertise, work with leading corporations around the world, and have real impact. We are looking for bright, creative women and men, of exceptional intellectual ability and character, to join our consulting team. We offer one of the most attractive opportunities in Australia for new graduates. We give you incomparable work experience, cutting-edge training, and exposure to many industries around the world.

Prof. O’Brien gives an illustrated talk linking together his careers of being Professor of Space Science in the USA during the Apollo era in the 1960s, the first Director of Environmental Protection and first Chairman of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in WA 1971 -1977, and his strategic and environmental consultancy 1978 to date with his return to academic circles and recent discoveries about inescapable lunar dust, “the Number 1 environmental problem” on the surface of the Moon for humans and robotic expeditions. He lectured the astronaut class of 1964 that contained many Apollo astronauts including Buzz Aldrin. He is Principal Investigator for 4 Dust Detector Experiments and a Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment, left on the Moon to make measurements of the environment of the Moon at Apollo 11, 12, 14 and 15 sites. Global awareness of the environment and the fragility of “Spaceship Earth” was fostered by Apollo photos of the blue and white planet in the blackness of space. Many details of drama, humour, tragedy, global and personal excitement are presented for discussion and questions. For example, Brian was in Mission Control in Houston for the extraordinary human drama of trying to save the Apollo 13 astronauts lost in space.

Have you considered a career in Management Consulting? Do you want to find out more about working for Bain & Company and the type of work we do? If so then come along to our recruiting presentation to meet Bainies and hear all about the work we do.