Welcome to Laser Physics Centre

Research School of Physics and Engineering, the Australian National University.

The Laser Physics Centre undertakes research and training at the highest international level on a range of topics with a balance between fundamental, strategic and applied laser-based research. The research program spans many of the most exciting aspects of contemporary laser physics and quantum electronics. Generally fundamental question have been addressed in studies of the interaction of intense laser light with matter; nonlinear processes involving atoms; and unltra-high resolution spectroscopy of solids. Research of more strategic nature includes work on photorefractive devices; on the properties of solitons and other nonlinear waves; on nonlinear optical materials for photonics; and aspects of solid-state physics for quantum computing. Applied research includes the development of novel high power lasers, parametric oscillators and amplifier; techniques for waveguide, photonic crystal and other photonic devices.

Current Research:

• Centre for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS)
• Laser-Matter Interaction and Laser Deposition
• Nonlinear Optical Effects in Novel Materials
• High Power Pulsed Laser and Parametric Amplifier/Oscillator
• Optical Device Fabrication
• Photonics Crystals, Optical-Induced Lattices and Solitons
• Solid State Spectroscopy Quantum Computing

News and Events:

• CUDOS has secured $23.8 million funding over seven years from 2011. "This is a new Centre of Excellence that builds on the strong foundation of the current CUDOS with new Chief Investigators, new international links and end-user partnerships and a new vision," explained Professor Eggleton. "The Centre will take the next big step in optical systems by transforming photonic integrated circuits into a technology that will have a profound effect on economies and lifestyles around the world. This will enable the Internet to transfer vast amounts of data with significantly improved energy efficiency; it will lead to secure transmission using quantum photonics-based devices, and to the detection of mid-infrared signatures of light from distant stars and complex molecules of environmental or biochemical importance. We will achieve this by developing functional metamaterials with optical properties to control light and engineering them into miniature photonic processors".
• This year Laser Physics Centre celebrates its 21th birthday.
• Ting Han on first prize for his poster in CUDOS annual workshop in Lake Crackenback from Feb 10-13 2009. Our students also won first prize for outreach activities poster in the workshop.
• Physics Students Uncovered 2008: Two of LPC students, Lachlan Rogers and Amrita Pasad, were chosen to take part in the challenge to present their research to the general public as part of Science Week. Their 10 minute talks were ranked the best of all five talks. The prize of $2000 was award to Amrita as the only winner of the competition. Further reading on the Canberra time.
• Prof. Barry Luther-Davies and Prof. Ben Eggelton (University of Sydney) were recently featured in Channel Nine Sunday program in the report on Chalcogenide Optical Chip operating at 600Gb/s. Watch the video on Sunday website.
• Khu Vu was one of the winners of best student submissions at ACOFT 2008 in Sydney.