Dr Natalie Plank of Victoria University came to visit the Photon Factory on 30/09/11 to discuss her research and her work with MESA (The Macdiarmid Emerging Scientists Association). In particular, she mentioned the Macdiarmid Cutting Edge Student and PostDoc Symposium 2010, to be held on Nov 18 & 19 at Victoria University. The symposium will discuss the career opportunities made available by your degree and attendance is encouraged.

Simon Ashforth presented a poster at this year’s Faculty of Science Postgraduate Poster Competition for his work on the laser cutting of bone, for which he got awarded a Merit. Congratulations Simon!

Cather has been chosen as the University’s feature researcher for August. The Photon Factory recently had a film crew interview Cather and record some activity in the lab for the University’s Research Works Wonders feature on Youtube. This video and information about Cather’s research can be found at the University’s August feature researcher page.

The Photon Factory had a high presence in this year’s University of Auckland Chemistry Research Showcase with posters presented by Peter Hosking, Julie Kho, Fraser MacMillan, Emma Simpson, Sarah Thompson and Hayley Ware. Bringing her A-game was Sarah Thompson, who won both 3rd Prize in the ‘2011 Research Showcase 2nd Year PhD Student Poster Competition’ and ‘Most Interesting Poster’.

Julie Kho also gave a presentation in the PhD student 2-minute talks, for which she was a runner-up.

Photon Factory system user Xinjie Song will be giving a seminar on the Design and Fabrication of Plastic Waveguides at 11am on Tuesday 10 May. All are welcome so come along!

Abstract: Polymer waveguide devices will play a key role in the area of integrated optics due to an easier fabrication process and integration over inorganic counterparts. My project is aiming at designing and characterizing an electro-optic polymer modulator operating at 1.55um by doping amorphous polycarbonate (APC) with non-linear chromophores provided by IRL. After an introduction to plastic optical waveguides, we will look at some simulation results which are used to determine the dimensions for the single mode operation of the straight waveguides. Different fabrication processes will be discussed together with some preliminary results. Some pictures of light coupled into waveguides will be presented as well.  Finally, future work will be described.

Professor Lloyd M. Davis from the Center for Laser Applications, University of Tennessee Space Institute, is presenting a School Seminar on Thursday 5 May. His talk is called “Femtosecond laser fabrication of devices for single-molecule spectroscopy and applications in biotechnology”. This will be held in Room 301-242 at 4 pm, followed by a sherry hour in the 5^th floor tea room.

The Photon Factory recently gave an interview to Radio New Zealand for their ‘Our Changing World’ segment. The interview with  Dr. Cather Simpson, Dr. Charles Rohde and Joshua Bradfield can be found here.

This year, Julie and Amy presented posters at the IONS-KOALA conference in Dunedin (pictured below). Cather also attended the conference as a Plenary Speaker with her talk ‘Chemical Physics and Widgets’.

The Photon Factory had a high profile at this year’s Asian Photochemistry Conference in Wellington this November. Julie gave her first presentation at an international conference, while both Amy Lin and Sarah Thompson had posters. Cather was a keynote speaker, with her talk ‘A New Twist in the Tale: Ultrafast Dynamics of Diphosphenes and Phosphoalkenes’.

To celebrate 50 years of lasers, Radio NZ had a laser-centric feature during ‘Our Changing World’ on Thurday, 09 December. Cather was one of the three guests invited to speak along with Kylie Price from the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research and Justin Hodgkiss from Victoria University. The story can be heard here.