FLEET News
FLEET is dialling in to the online APS March Meeting from afar this year! Here’s a list of talks given by FLEET members and affiliates throughout the week to check out (if you have registered for the conference, catch-up links are provided on each page). Monday 15 March Ali Yazdani (Princeton University, FLEET Advisory Committee) Correlation and topology in magic …
We’re pleased to present hot-off-the-press FLEET ‘s 2020 Annual Report, detailing an extraordinary level of scientific output, as well as FLEET’s response to COVID-19. It was quite a year! The new online format is much easier to navigate and share with others (just share the relevant page’s URL), as well as being a bit gentler on the planet. Thanks everyone …
In 2020, FLEET continued the Year 10 ‘Future electronics’ course launched the year before in partnership with John Monash Science School (JMSS), Victoria. As well as covering the history of semiconductors, Moore’s Law and computing, the course introduces quantum physics at an intuitive level (with minimal maths) and expands on this fundamental understanding to explain complex, useful quantum states such …
Applying machine learning to automated characterisation of atomically-thin materials Just as James Cameron’s Terminator-800 was able to discriminate between “clothes, boots, and a motorcycle”, machine-learning could identify different areas of interest on 2D materials. The simple, automated optical identification of fundamentally different physical areas on these materials (eg, areas displaying doping, strain, and electronic disorder) could significantly accelerate the science …
Although 2020 posed unique challenges to in-person collaborations, FLEET proactively sought out opportunities to partner with other science organisations to further the reach of Centre-relevant science, advance equity issues and develop future leaders, for example: Working with the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) to instigate and co-host a monthly series of talks spotlighting physics research at six different Australian Research …
Alex Hamilton’s QED group at UNSW recently hosted four summer students, working alongside FLEET’s researchers on nanofabrication and characterisation projects connected to the QED group’s key research mission. Over the course of their six-week placement, students pursued individual projects within the groups research project, developing individual skills in device fabrication and experimental process. The UNSW Physics Quantum Electronic Devices group …
The ‘sloshing’ of a quantum fluid comprised of light and matter reveals superfluid properties. An Australian-led team of physicists have successfully created sloshing quantum liquids in a ‘bucket’ formed by containment lasers. “These quantum fluids are expected to be as wavy as the oceans, but catching clear pictures of the waves is an experimental challenge,” says lead author Dr Eliezer …
FLEET pushed out the boundary of online talks, collaborating with the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) to co-host a series of monthly public seminars highlighting Australian physics research. The new series throws the spotlight on a different Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence each month, with AIP members and others in the physics community joining over Zoom to hear about …
Could long-distance interactions between individual molecules forge a new way to compute? Interactions between individual molecules on a metal surface extend for surprisingly large distances – up to several nanometers. A new study, just published, of the changing shape of electronic states induced by these interactions, has potential future application in the use of molecules as individually addressable units. For …
FLEET scientists seeking new, creative ways to do science outreach found a silver lining in Covid-19 restrictions: they actually improved the experience for students. A team of FLEET-UNSW PhDs and early-career researchers (ECRs) was able to bridge 2020’s Covid restrictions to safely engage a classroom of students with virtual, but hands-on science. Led by PhD student Vivasha Govinden and node …
In the absence of in-house lab tours to introduce school students to working labs and researchers, in 2020 FLEET developed and distributed a series of ‘virtual lab tours’, of varying levels of interactivity: Show-and-tell lab tour via webcam for John Monash Science School (JMSS) students at Clayton of FLEET laboratories at UNSW in Sydney (materials science), and Swinburne University in …
Why would we need a special day to celebrate women in science? February 11th marks the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, promoted by the United Nations. According to the UN, less than 30% of the researchers worldwide are women. This means that there’s twice as many men as there are women! In fields like Mathematics, Physics and …
An international team of scientists has invented the equivalent of body armour for extremely fragile quantum systems, which will make them robust enough to be used as the basis for a new generation of low-energy electronics. The scientists applied the armour by gently squashing droplets of liquid metal gallium onto the materials, coating them with gallium oxide. Protection is crucial …
FLEET provides mentoring to personnel across all career stages (such as PhD students and early- and mid-career researchers) covering areas such as induction, career advancement and planning, equity and diversity, professional development, entrepreneurship and research leadership skills. Two mentoring models are offered: Individual, goal-oriented mentoring, where members are individually matched to a mentor within FLEET based on their needs, for …
While FLEET’s face-to-face outreach efforts were necessarily limited in 2020, the Centre innovated new ways to keep our members involved in science outreach. Several FLEET members took advantage of lockdown to generate homescience experiments at home, with a seeming bias towards experiments that involved blowing something up or setting something on fire. (An insight into lockdown frustration perhaps, or just …