Session 3.7c Update: Meta-Optics: A Quantum Leap in Defense Communications
Tracks
| Thursday, November 16, 2023 |
| 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM |
| Menzies Theatre |
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Meta-Optics is an emerging technology that uses sub-wavelength patterned surfaces—metasurfaces—to mimic the effects of traditional optical components such as lenses and mirrors. These artificially engineered materials manipulate light by interacting with nanostructures rather than refracting it through a traditional lens.
Metasurfaces can engineer the light wavefront, emission and absorption to a degree that they demonstrate improved performance over traditional optics with a vastly smaller footprint, and they offer functionalities that cannot be achieved conventionally. Meta-optics are smaller, weigh less and require less power to deploy, making them ideal for devices such as nanosats and drones.
Meta-optics have many applications relevant to military communications. Most current quantum communication and information systems require laboratory infrastructure and cryogenic cooling, making them unsuitable for mobile applications. Miniaturised single photon emitters and detectors utilising metasurfaces can operate at room temperature expanding the range of situations in which secure quantum communications can be used.
In addition to quantum applications, meta-optics is making significant headway in infrared (IR) detection and manipulation. Our researchers are working on airborne, wide field-of-view IR sensors using a single curved Mercury Cadmium Telluride (MCT) imaging array, as well as IR up-conversion technology that makes IR wavelengths visible, applications for which include night vision and situational awareness.
LiDAR is another technology being revolutionised by meta-optics. Reconnaissance and surveillance systems can be optimised by using metamaterials to improve sensitivity while simultaneously minimizing the device size to lower costs associated with drone and space surveillance, as well as long-range targeting systems.
Speaker/s
Mrs Samara Thorn
Engagement Manager
TMOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems
As the Engagement Manager at TMOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, Samara's role is to help researchers communicate their science and help businesses understand how the new field of meta-optics will transform their industry and where future opportunities for growth lie. With close to 15 years' experience in public relations and marketing, her greatest strength is understanding audiences, what motivates them, what information they need to help them reach their goals. She specialize in taking complex scientific research and identifying who might benefit from it and how the information should be communicated. As a Clifton Strengths-certified coach, she works one-on-one with creatives, physicists, and engineers to help them develop and optimise their processes, which might seem like an odd grouping but draws on the common creativity and problem-solving aspects of their crafts. She also works with organizations to implement a Strengths-based approach to their operations.
Dr Mehran Kianinia
Post-doctoral Researcher
TMOS
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Mehran is currently vice chancellor research fellow at UTS, following his research in quantum optics and quantum technologies. Previously he held a postdoctoral and research position with the quantum optics group at UTS and TMOS Center of Excellence. He conducted unique experiments on quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and developed a new fabrication method for indistinguishable photons from solid state sources, and spin defects in 2D materials. The end goal of his research is developed technologies based on 2D materials for applications in quantum computation, quantum communication and quantum sensing. Beside his research, he is actively mentoring and supervising PhD and honours students and lecturing a few courses for undergraduate students.
Dr Josephine Munro
Post-doctoral Researcher
TMOS
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Josephine is a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian National University. She is currently working on the instrumentation for a remote sensing project. The project aims to demonstrate the improved functionality of satellite imaging using metasurfaces. Josephine completed her PhD in optical aberration characterisation for astronomical instrumentation and has since refocused her research on the rapidly expanding field of metasurfaces. She is particularly interested in manipulating the optical domain of imaging systems; from both a biological and artificial perspective.
Dr Rocio Camacho Morales
Post-doctoral researcher
TMOS
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Dr. Rocio Camacho Morales is a postdoctoral fellow in the Research School of Physics at The Australian National University (ANU). She received her BSc in Physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, her MSc in Physics from the Ensenada Centre for Scientific Research and Higher Education, Mexico, and her PhD in Physics from the ANU. In 2021, she published a first author paper entitled "Infrared up-conversion imaging in nonlinear metasurfaces”. The publication was followed by an intense media promotion which led to industry funding and collaborations with L3Harris Technologies, a defense company, and Sony Europe B.V. Through these industry engagements, she has been investigating the conversion of infrared light to visible using metasurfaces. Her research interest is in the fields of nanophotonics, optical metasurfaces, and nonlinear frequency generation.
