Invited speakers

Atom-surface interactions 

Professor P Kruger
University of Nottingham, UK

Professor Peter Krüger recently joined the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham to establish the Cold Atoms and Quantum Optics group within the newly founded Midlands Ultracold Atom Research Centre. After studies in Berlin, Innsbruck and Heidelberg he received his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 2004 for his pioneering work with Professor Jörg Schmiedmayer on microscopic traps for ultracold gases near atom chips. His research then focused on atom interferometry and the coherence properties of low-temperature Bose gases in one and two dimensions. As a Humboldt and Marie Curie Fellow at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, he studied the Berizinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a dilute atomic vapour. His current interests are in dynamic phenomena and spatio-temporally designed interactions in microscopically controlled cold atom systems as well as in hybrid quantum electronic - atom chip devices and magnetic and gravitational field sensors.

Biological physics

Professor T Duke
London Centre for Nanotechnology

Tom Duke holds a Chair of Physics at UCL and directs the programme of research in the life sciences at the London Centre for Nanotechnology. His interests lie in the application of physics to problems in biology and biomedicine and current topics include the mechanism of sound detection in the inner ear, cell motility, cell signalling, tissue mechanics and the application of nanotechnology to clinical diagnostics.

Following BA and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge, Duke spent periods at a number of institutions renowned for strong interdisciplinary research, including ESPCI Paris, Princeton University, Institut Curie, and the Niels Bohr Institute. He conducted research at the University of Cambridge for twelve years, initially as a Royal Society University Research Fellow and then as a Lecturer and Reader, before assuming his current position at UCL in 2007.

He is a former fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and a recipient of the Franklin Medal of the Institute of Physics.

Professor P O'Shea
The University of Nottingham, UK

Paul O'Shea holds the Chair of Biophysics & Biomaterials at the University of Nottingham. He has worked at the interface between the life sciences and physics and chemistry throughout his career and is a strong advocate of the need to reduce barriers between theses disciplines; without compromising their respective strengths and identities. He is a co-founder and co-director of the Institute of Biophysics, Imaging & Optical Science [http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ibios/]at the university. He directs the Cell Biophysics Group (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~mazpso/) that operates within the School of Biology and forms a component part of iBIOS. His research interests encompass both theoretical and experimental studies of intermolecular interactions in complex media, particularly those that take place on and within membrane bilayers in cells and in simpler artificial systems. He has pioneered the use of fluorescence techniques to illuminate the electrostatic and electrodynamic properties of membranes and defined the underlying theoretical basis of these phenomena. These approaches allowed a definition of the biophysical rationale of how membrane rafts can offer living cells exquisite control of the activity membrane signaling systems. Over the last decade he has implemented a number of optical techniques towards spatial imaging of important molecular interactions within cell membranes which have a bearing on how living cells function and interact with their environment.

Computer simulation in soft matter

Dr M G Del Popolo
Queen's University Belfast, UK

Mario Del Popolo is currently a Lecturer at the Atomistic Simulation Centre (ASC) of Queen's University Belfast. He obtained his PhD in 2002 from the National University of Córdoba, in Argentina, spent a year as a postdoc at the Henry Eyring Centre for Theoretical Chemistry of the University of Utah, USA, and joined the ASC in 2003.

His research activity focuses on the use of computer simulations and statistical mechanics to investigate molecular and ionic fluids, and chemical reactivity in solution.

Professor I Paggonabarraga
University of Barcelona, Spain

Ignacio Pagonabarraga is Professor in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Barcelona since 2011. He obtained his PhD at the university of Barcelona in 1995 on the adsorption kinetics of colloidal suspensions. He has performed a postdoctoral stay in the Institute Amolf (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) in the group of Prof. Frenkel, and a the university of Edinburgh, in the group of Prof. M.E. Cates. After these postdoctoral stays, he obtained a permanent position at the university of Barcelona in 2001.

His research interests focus on the theoretical studies and computational modelling of collective, physical properties of soft matter. He has contributed to the physics of colloidal suspensions, polydisperse colloidal and polymer mixtures, complex fluid kinetics, electrokinetics, active fluids and biologically motivated systems among others.

He has published over 90 papers in scientific journals and has been invited to impart 49 talks in international scientific conferences.

He has supervised 3 PhD students, and is currently supervising 4 additional students. Prof. Pagonabarraga has also hosted 6 postdoctoral researchers and has been involved in 30 competitive funded research projects.

Functional phase transitional physics

Professor J Kreisel
CNRS, MINATEC, France

Jens Kreisel was born in Dortmund, Germany. After studies in Germany & France, he obtained a MSc in Physics from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a MSc in Materials Science from Grenoble INP. In Grenoble he then obtained in 1999 his PhD on studies of crystallographic and magnetic structures in iron oxides. From 1999 to 2000 Jens has been a post-doc at the University of Oxford. Since 2000 he is holding a permanent CNRS position in Grenoble, now heading as Director of Research the "Synthesis and Physical Chemistry of Solids group", namely working on Phase Transitions in Ferroic Oxides. Jens is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Warwick University. 

Intermetallic alloys and their surfaces, properties and applications  

Dr J-M Dubois
Institut Jean Lamour Ecole des Mines de Nancy, France 

Jean-Marie Dubois owns a PhD in Physics from INPL-Nancy and a Dr Hon. Causa from Iowa State University. He is a former overseas fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, U.K. and a professor at Dalian University of Technology, China. Distinguished Director of Research at CNRS, France, his research topics have revolved around metal physics and engineering of complex metallic materials. He is the author of more than 300 scientific articles, 14 international patents, and 7 books.

After establishing structure models for metallic glasses and quasicrystals, Dubois became interested in applied properties of these materials: heat insulation, low adhesive properties and infrared light absorption. He is currently working on cold-welding and solid-solid adhesion in vacuum of Al-based complex intermetallics against steel. His general interest is on understanding the surface energy of those materials and their scaling properties in relation to their electronic structure.

Liquids and complex fluids  

Dr J Adams
University of Surrey, UK

James Adams is a member of the Soft Condensed Matter group at the University of Surrey, where he has been a lecturer and SEPnet fellow since 2009. He obtained his PhD in 2005 from the University of Cambridge for work on liquid crystal elastomers, supervised by Prof. Mark Warner. He then took up a research fellowship funded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, which enabled him to undertake research collaborations on microstructure in smectic liquid crystal elastomers and shear banding in complex fluids. His research interests include the rheology of complex fluids such as polymer solutions and worm like micellar solutions, electromechanical properties of smectic liquid crystals, and adhesives. 

Local structures of functional materials 

Professor M Dove
Queen Mary, University of London, UK 

Professor Martin Dove recently joined the School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary, University of London, as Director of the newly established Centre for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. Previously he was Professor of Computational Mineral Physics in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge. His research work is based on a mixture of neutron scattering experiments and computational methods, and has particular interests in structural phase transitions and disordered materials. Most recently these two approaches have been combined to study the local structure of materials using total scattering studies and the Reverse Monte Carlo method optimised for materials with long-range periodic structures.

He was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in 2007. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute Laue Langevin, the ISIS Facility Board, and the STFC Science Board.

Materials for energy

Professor P Edwards
University of Oxford, UK

Peter P. Edwards is Professor and Head of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford. His research interests include metal-insulator transitions, high temperature superconductivity, metals in non-aqueous solvents, small metallic particles and energy materials, with a particular emphasis on new-generation, high-performance materials for hydrogen production and storage, CO2 activation and utilisation , inorganic semiconductor thin films for solar energy applications and advanced catalytic materials.

Following BSc and PhD degrees at Salford University, Edwards spent periods at Cornell (Fulbright Scholar and National Science Foundation Fellow)), Cambridge (Lecturer and Director of Studies in Chemistry, Jesus College), Birmingham (Professor of Chemistry, and of Materials), before assuming his present position at Oxford in 2003. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996 and to the German Academy of Sciences in 2009.

He has been the recipient of the Corday-Morgan, Tilden and Liversidge Medals of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society. In 2012 he is to present The Bakerian Prize Lecture of the Royal Society; the Society's premier lecture in the physical sciences.

Professor T Jones
University of Warwick, UK

Matter under extreme conditions

Professor M McMahon         
University of Edinburgh, UK   

Malcolm McMahon is Professor of High Pressure Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. He is Deputy Director of the University's Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions, and, since October 2011, has held a William Penney Fellowship at AWE.

Malcolm obtained his PhD from the University of Edinburgh, and then worked at the Daresbury synchrotron source on the UK as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. Malcolm's research interests are in using x-ray diffraction to investigate the behaviour of simple materials to extreme pressures and temperature. He is a frequent user of synchrotron sources in the UK, Europe and the US, where he has developed techniques to collect and analyse diffraction data from both polycrystalline and single-crystal samples. Most recently, his research interests have moved to the use of dynamic compression techniques to push structural studies of matter well beyond the current limits of static compression science.

Mott lecture

Professor N Hussey
University of Bristol, UK

Nigel Hussey is an experimental physicist studying the charge transport properties of unconventional superconductors and low dimensional correlated metals, with a particular emphasis on quasi-one-dimensional metals and the high temperature cuprate superconductors. He obtained his BSc and PhD at the University of Sussex, before spending three and a half years as a postdoc at the University of Cambridge, overlapping briefly with Sir Nevill Mott before his untimely death in 1996. Following a CREST Fellowship at the University of Tokyo, he then returned to the UK, initially to take up a Lectureship at Loughborough University before finally moving to Bristol in 2000. In 2005, he received the Institute of Physics Charles Vernon Boys Medal and Prize for 'his important contributions to the understanding of high temperature superconductors; in particular for making the first observation of the full Fermi surface in a high temperature superconductor'. A year later, he was awarded a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship and in 2009, received the Institute of Physics Superconductivity Prize. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and currently the holder of a Royal Society / Wolfson Research Merit Award. 

Nanomagnetism  

Professor R Stamps
University of Glasgow, UK

Robert Stamps joined the University of Glasgow in 2011 as Professor of Solid State Physics. He has published over 180 papers on a range of topics in magnetism, including linear and nonlinear dynamics of magnetic and ferroelectric nanostructures, frustrated spin systems and spin glasses, inelastic light scattering and ferromagnetic resonance, spin electronics, and domain wall dynamics in constrained geometries and random systems. He was a Humboldt Fellow at the RWTH Aachen, Australian Professorial Fellow and Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia, has held CNRS and CNR Fellowships in France and Italy, and has been a visiting professor at the the Universities of Strasbourg, Paris 7 &11 and Henri Poincaré. He was the 2004 Wohlfarth Lecturer and a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. in 2008. 

Nanoscale physics at low temperature

Professor C G Smith
University of Cambridge, UK 

Professor Charles G. Smith is based at the Physics department at the University of Cambridge. He has mainly focussed his research on quantum phenomena observed in nanoelectronic semiconductor devices at low temperatures. These devices are now being investigated for their possible applications in quantum computing. One proposal for constructing quantum computes uses single spins trapped in semiconductor quantum dots. Professor Smith was involved in developing and measuring some of the first gated GaAs quantum dot devices, and later developed a non-invasive voltage probe, that is currently widely used for state readout in coupled quantum dot devices and which can measure the movement of single electrons in these systems at RF frequencies.

Professor Smith was also an early developer of low temperature scanning probe techniques for uncovering quantum phenomena in nano-electronic devices. This includes mapping out the probability distribution for wafefunctions found in a ballistic one dimensional constriction. His team were also able to use the probe tip to reversibly draw quantum structures at low temperatures.

He worked on some of the early measurements on spintronic devices, where the electronic transport though a semiconductor device is dependent on the magnetic alignment of closely space ferromagnetic contacts.

Professor Smith's team has demonstrated that four GaAs quantum dots arranged in a square can be coupled by their polarisation fields to demonstrate a Quantum Cellular Architecture (QCA). A QCA is a computing scheme where information is transferred using the polarisation of small arrangements of quantum dots containing two excess electrons.

Professor Smith was an early developer of nano-mechanical devices with applications in the electronics industry. He is the founder of Cavendish Kinetics Ltd, the technology for which came from his fundamental research into quantized 1-D phonons in free-standing metal wires of a few 10s of nm in diameter. The company has developed a CMOS compatible micro-electromechanical (MEMS) process that is being used to fabricate digital variable capacitors for RF switching and control in mobile phone applications.

Professor J Parpia
Cornel University, USA 

Jeevak Parpia is a physicist whose research interests encompass traditional low temperature physics (including the physics of 3He under confinement and disorder) as well as the physics of MEMS and NEMS structures, including applications of the latter for sensing from the gas phase. Following his education in India at the Cathedral & John Connon School in Mumbai, he was awarded the BS degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D at Cornell, both in Physics. He was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Physics at Texas A & M from 1979-1986, before returning to Cornell in 1986, where he has been since. He has held visiting appointments at Royal Holloway, University of London and at the Walther Meissner Institut in Garching. Research awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society, recognized for the discovery of superfluidity of disordered 3He in aerogel. Currently he is a Professor of Physics at Cornell where he also serves as Director of Graduate Studies and Acting Director of the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics. 

Dr M Sillanpää
Aalto University School of Science, Finland

Mika Sillanpää's physics studies took place at the department of Engineering Physics and Mathematics at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT). In 1999, Sillanpää received his master's degree, working at the Low Temperature Laboratory (LTL) on single-electron transistors.

In his Ph.D. work, also in LTL, Sillanpää developed microwave readout methods for Josephson junction devices relating to the field of superconducting qubits emerging at the time. These work include inductive readout for single-electron transistor, observation of quantum capacitance of Josephson junction, and Landau-Zener interferometry.

After obtaining his Ph.D. in 2005, Sillanpää joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado, USA for a two-year postdoc position. He worked in the group to demonstrate a "quantum bus" and a quantum memory linking two superconducting qubits via an on-chip cavity.

Sillanpää returned to Finland in 2007, back to the Low Temperature Laboratory. With funding from Finnish Academy, he started gradually shifting focus towards nanomechanical systems. He was awarded the prestigious ERC Starting Grant funding in 2009 to study the interfacing of superconducting qubits and resonators with nanomechanical systems. In 2011, Sillanpää was awarded the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Low Temperature Physics for investigations in coherent quantum information transfer and Landau-Zener interferometry in superconducting qubits.

Neutron spectroscopy

Dr R Osborn
Argonne National Laboratory, USA

Ray Osborn is currently the Group Leader of the Neutron and X-ray Scattering Group in the Materials Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory. After studying at Imperial College and Southampton, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, from 1982 to 1985, before working at the ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He has worked at Argonne National Laboratory since 1992.

His research is in the field of strongly correlated electron systems probing spin, charge and orbital correlations using neutrons and x-rays. An early focus on f-electron systems included inelastic neutron scattering measurements of intermultiplet transitions in rare earth metals, crystal field transitions in heavy fermions and measurements of quantum critical scaling of the dynamic magnetic susceptibility in non-Fermi liquid compounds. He has used diffuse neutron and x-ray scattering to investigate the role of short-range polaron correlations in the colossal magnetoresistance of layered manganites. This led to an interest in developing more efficient cross correlation methods of measuring single crystal diffuse neutron scattering that will be utilized in a new instrument at the Spallation Neutron Source. More recently, he has been studying resonant spin excitations in the iron-based superconductors as a probe of their unconventional superconductivity.

Ray Osborn is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was awarded the University of Chicago Distinguished Performance Award in 2006.

Dr S Parker
ISIS, UK

Stewart Parker is a chemist who joined the ISIS Facility as an instrument scientist in 1993 after working at the BP Research Centre (Sunbury, UK). His interests are in the application of vibrational spectroscopy (particularly using neutrons) to solve problems in chemistry and materials science. He has published over 200 papers, one-third of which are concerned with catalysts of industrial relevance. His current research is attempting to effectively combine diffraction studies with vibrational spectroscopy and periodic-DFT in order to better understand nanoparticulate materials.

Nonlinear dynamics complexity and synchronisation 

Professor D Rand
University of Warwick, UK

David Rand directs the Warwick Systems Biology Centre, is a Professor of Mathematics and, until very recently, a EPSRC Senior Research Fellow. Until 1990 his primary research field was dynamical systems for which he was awarded the London Mathematical Society's Whitehead Prize. Since then he has been working at the interface between mathematics and biology. More recently he has developed substantial systems biology programmes in areas such as circadian rhythms (with Andrew Millar, Edinburgh), NF-kappaB signaling (with Mike White, Manchester), cancer chronobiology (with Frances Levi and Albert Goldbeter, INSERM and Brussels), prolactin transcription (with Julian Davis and Mike White, Manchester) and plant stress (with Jim Beynon, Warwick). He has recently developed a range of mathematical tools for the analysis of complex network systems and for experimental optimization, and, with Bärbel Finkenstädt (Statistics, Warwick), he has developed new statistical techniques for model-based data analysis and for the analysis of transcriptional and other molecular data. 

Polymer physics

Dr S Hanna
University of Bristol, UK

Simon Hanna is a Reader in Physics in the H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Dept. of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, on the subject of liquid crystalline polymers. He had two spells in industry, working in the liquid crystal displays division of STL, and writing and marketing molecular modelling software for a spin-out company, Cambridge Molecular Design. After post-docs at the Max Planck Institute für Polymerforschung in Mainz, and the University of Cambridge, he moved to the School of Physics in Bristol. His current research interests include computer modelling of soft matter, theory of optical tweezers and computational electromagnetics. He has coauthored a book on liquid crystalline polymers and, until recently, was vice-chairman on the Polymer Physics Group of the IOP.

Quantum fluids and solids

Professor J Beamish
University of Alberta, Cananda

John Beamish is a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1982. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Brown University and then a faculty member at the University of Delaware before returning to Alberta in 1991. His research involves quantum fluids and solids and his lab is currently focused on the unusual quantum behavior of solid helium at low temperatures. Since October 2011 he has been enjoying a sabbatical year at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.

Quantum gases  

Professor N Cooper
University of Cambridge, UK

Prof Nigel Cooper's research concerns the properties of many-particle quantum systems in which strong correlations are important. His work spans both semiconductor materials and ultra-cold atomic gases. His work on rapidly rotating atomic gases identified a novel regime in which the groundstates are unusual phases of matter, the excitations of which are expected to obey ``non-abelian'' exchange statistics. In 2007 he was awarded the Maxwell Medal by the Institute of Physics. 

Quantum interfaces

Professor S Kuhr
University of Strathclyde, UK

Stefan Kuhr works in the field of quantum optics, in particular with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. In his past and present work, Stefan has focussed on trapping and manipulation of a single or very few quantum objects - either single atoms or single photons. He received his PhD in Bonn (Germany) where he pioneered single-atom trapping in a standing wave laser field. Afterwards, he became a postdoctoral fellow at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris with Professor Serge Haroche where he demonstrated quantum non-demolition detection of single photons. Since 2006 he has been working as a senior scientist in the group of Professor Immanuel Bloch in Mainz and Munich. Together with his research group, he succeeded in imaging and addressing individual atoms in strongly correlated quantum systems in an optical lattice. Since 2011 Stefan Kuhr holds the SUPA Chair of Quantum Information at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.  

Structural studies of nanomaterials  

Professor I Robinson
University College London, UK

My research interest is X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation (SR). During the Bell Labs years, I developed the methods for studying surface structure using X-ray diffraction. These methods, based on crystal truncation rods, have become the definitive technique for the determination of the atomic positions at surfaces and interfaces. These surface methods are still used today at the major SR facilities, NSLS (Brookhaven), ESRF (Grenoble), APS(Chicago) and SLS (Villigen). I was awarded two prizes for the surface structure work, the Warren Prize in 2000 and the Surface Structure Prize in 2011.

To develop the methodology of X-ray diffraction with SR, I built two beamlines. The first was a dedicated surfaces and interface structure beamline X16A at the National Synchrotron Light Source (Brookhaven). The second was 34-ID for coherent diffraction at the Advanced Phoyon Source(Chicago). More recently I have been developing methods of using the very high coherence of the latest SR sources to enable direct 3D imaging of structure. This is potentially useful for examining strain distributions inside complex materials on the nanometre length scale.

The coherent X-ray diffraction methods will develop and expand further at the Diamond Light Source (DLS) located at Rutherford Appleton Lab (RAL) near Oxford. I am a founding "Diamond Fellow" of the Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH), also located at RAL. This is a meeting place of physical and live scientists interested in the transfer of methodologies from the physical to the life sciences. Materials and biological imaging are the main directions under development there.

Three major grants are supporting the work of my group, which is now divided between the UCL and RCaH centres. The first, entitled "nanosculpture", looks at strains induced in nanometre-sized crystals either synthesised from atoms in a 'bottom up' procedure, or else carved by lithography from bulk materials in a 'top down' approach. The second is to study the structure of the human chromosome by X-ray imaging methods. The third is to develop new X-ray imaging methods based on deliberate modulation of the phase by suitably developed X-ray optics.

Superconductivity  

Professor D P Hampshire
Durham University, UK

Professor Damian Hampshire (M.A. D.Phil. (Oxon) F.Inst.P C. Phys F. Inst R.A.S.) is Director of the Centre for Materials Physics and Head of the Superconductivity group in the Physics Department in Durham University, England. He is Vice-chairman of the British Cryogenics Council, PI for the European Fusion Laboratory for Metrology of Superconducting Materials and Editor-in-chief of the IoP journal Superconductor Science and Technology. Hampshire was a PDRA with Professor Larbalestier at the Applied Superconductivity Centre in Madison USA. He completed his PhD in Oxford with Profs Jones and Mitchell and his first degree as an Open Scholar in Physics at New College, Oxford with Profs. Stinchcombe and Silver.

His interests are in the properties of superconducting materials in high magnetic fields. Recent research includes the development of nanocrystalline superconductors with enhanced upper critical fields, TDGL visualisation of flux flow in polycrystalline materials and the development of scaling laws for the critical current density under strain of LTS and HTS materials.

Professor Dr A Wallraff
ETZ Zurich, Switzerland 

Since January 2010 Andreas Wallraff is an Associate Professor for Solid State Physics in the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich. He joined the department in January 2006 as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor. Previously, he has obtained degrees in physics from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, U.K., Rheinisch Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, Germany and did research towards his Masters degree at the Research Center Jülich, Germany. During his doctoral research he investigated the quantum dynamics of vortices in superconductors and observed for the first time the tunneling and energy level quantization of an individual vortex for which he obtained a PhD degree in physics from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. During the four years he spent as a research scientist at Yale University in New Haven, CT, USA he performed experiments in which the coherent interaction of a single photon with a single quantum electronic circuit was observed for the first time. Now his research is focused on the experimental investigation of quantum effects in mesoscopic electronic circuits for performing fundamental quantum optics experiments and also for applications in quantum information processing. His group at ETH Zurich engages in research on micro and nano-electronics, with a particular focus on hybrid quantum systems combining superconducting electronic circuits with semiconductor quantum dots and individual Rydberg atoms, making use of fast and sensitive microwave techniques at ultra-low temperatures.

Andreas Wallraff received the Nicholas Kurti European Science Prize in March 2006 in recognition of a record of sustained achievement working at the forefront of quantum device research employing experimental low-temperature techniques. In 2009 he was awarded the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Independent Research Grant to work on hybrid cavity quantum electrodynamics with atoms and circuits. In 2011 he received the ETH Zurich Roessler Prize.

Surfaces and interfaces  

Dr W Allison
University of Cambridge, UK

Bill Allison applies novel molecular-beam methods to the study of surfaces. His interests include the use of elastic and inelastic atom-scattering and he has investigated the prospects for creating a surface microscope using helium atoms. His research is conducted in the Cavendish Laboratory but he has also worked at other labs in the UK, the USA and Australia. Along with John Ellis and Andy Jardine, he has recently developed spin-precession methods in atomic beams to create an ultra-high resolution spectroscopy. These experiments have opened up a new field that allows the investigation of adsorbate motion on time-scales less than a nano-second with spatial resolution on an atomic-scale.

Professor G Costantini
University of Warwick, UK

November 2010 - Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick
September 2007 - November 2010 - Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick
April 2008 - December 2008 - Senior Research Assistant and Group Leader, Max-Planck-Institut for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany
February 2008 - PhD in Physics, University of Genova, Italy