Stable Non-toxic Organic-inorganic Halide Perovskite Solar Cells. The project aims to develop next-generation organic-inorganic halide solar cells which are stable and non-toxic. Although rapid progress has been made in the emerging perovskite solar cell technology, it currently relies on lead as a key perovskite component. The elimination of lead from organic-inorganic halide perovskite solar cells would greatly increase their acceptance as an alternative thin film photovoltaic solution because ....Stable Non-toxic Organic-inorganic Halide Perovskite Solar Cells. The project aims to develop next-generation organic-inorganic halide solar cells which are stable and non-toxic. Although rapid progress has been made in the emerging perovskite solar cell technology, it currently relies on lead as a key perovskite component. The elimination of lead from organic-inorganic halide perovskite solar cells would greatly increase their acceptance as an alternative thin film photovoltaic solution because of their low cost and non-toxic nature. The dearth of lead-free perovskite solar cell demonstrations and the relatively low conversion efficiencies demonstrated understate their potential. This project plans to improve understanding of their photovoltaic enabling attributes by characterising and modelling their optical and electrical properties. It then plans to apply new fabrication methods to develop lead-free solar devices.Read moreRead less
Taming light and electrons in optical fibres. This project aims to add electrical conduction functionality to optical fibres to manipulate light with electrons and vice versa in a photonics platform, which could bridge the gap between photonics and electronics. It will achieve electrical conduction in optical fibres by creating conductive phases within and onto glass using fibre drawing and polymerisation. The project is expected to lead to breakthroughs in fundamental science at the interfaces ....Taming light and electrons in optical fibres. This project aims to add electrical conduction functionality to optical fibres to manipulate light with electrons and vice versa in a photonics platform, which could bridge the gap between photonics and electronics. It will achieve electrical conduction in optical fibres by creating conductive phases within and onto glass using fibre drawing and polymerisation. The project is expected to lead to breakthroughs in fundamental science at the interfaces between photonics, electronics and materials engineering, and develop optical fibres that change functionalities and applications of optical fibre devices.Read moreRead less
Drawn metamaterials: scalable nanofabrication for optical components of the future. The project will create practical metamaterials (artificial nanostructured materials) using our breakthrough drawing technique. With these metamaterials the project will create extraordinary devices capable of controlling light in otherwise unobtainable ways: rendering objects invisible, imaging and patterning on nanoscale and flexibly guiding Terahertz radiation.
Nanostructured anti-reflection coatings for LED applications. Light emitting diode (LED) devices play a critical role in emerging technologies with important current and future applications in medicine, health, horticulture, nanotechnology, biology and photonics. The basic laws of optics, however, only allow a very small amount of light to escape their surfaces due to very strong intrinsic internal reflection. This project aims to optimally couple light by design to nanostructured metal - low lo ....Nanostructured anti-reflection coatings for LED applications. Light emitting diode (LED) devices play a critical role in emerging technologies with important current and future applications in medicine, health, horticulture, nanotechnology, biology and photonics. The basic laws of optics, however, only allow a very small amount of light to escape their surfaces due to very strong intrinsic internal reflection. This project aims to optimally couple light by design to nanostructured metal - low loss zinc oxide surface coatings to significantly improve the light extraction efficiency. These breakthroughs in nanoscience and nanotechnology are expected to lead to enhanced LED performance, efficiency and longevity.Read moreRead less
Carbon nanotube fluidic channels for desalination - interplay of nanoscale confinement and electrostatics. Tiny tubes of carbon, ten thousand times smaller than human hair, allow water to pass through at extraordinary speed. This project aims to understand and improve their salt rejection properties using comprehensive experimental and theoretical approaches. This will provide the impetus and knowledge for developing advanced membranes for desalination
It’s a fine line: analytical and experimental optimisation of drawing metal-in-dielectric nanowire composites to manufacture engineered metamaterials. Exploitation of ‘smart materials’ is a major opportunity for 21st century Australian manufacturing if cost effective bulk production is available. Metamaterials are ideal building blocks for such new-age materials, being dielectric/metal composites structured on sub-wavelength dimensions, offering diverse properties unavailable in natural material ....It’s a fine line: analytical and experimental optimisation of drawing metal-in-dielectric nanowire composites to manufacture engineered metamaterials. Exploitation of ‘smart materials’ is a major opportunity for 21st century Australian manufacturing if cost effective bulk production is available. Metamaterials are ideal building blocks for such new-age materials, being dielectric/metal composites structured on sub-wavelength dimensions, offering diverse properties unavailable in natural materials. Fibre drawing is a proven mass-production technology for translating the structure of a (macroscale) preform to microscale and has recently been applied it to fabricate microscale metamaterials. By overcoming fundamental instabilities, this project will transform the technique to manufacture nanoscale structured composites and demonstrate practical metamaterial-based optical devices with unique properties.Read moreRead less
Nanocrystals in glass: a new nanophotonic material. The new nanophotonic materials will enable breakthroughs in exploitation of the outstanding properties of nanocrystals in photonic devices. This will open up progress in telecommunication, medicine and solar cell technology.
New approach to control grain boundary behaviour in superconducting thin films. This project aims at finding a new approach to overcome the cornerstone problem of high temperature superconducting films through new design, magnetic interactions, and real-time magnetic flux visualisation at the quantum level. The expected ultimate achievement would be to develop new technologies, delivering the best performance of the films.
Ytterbium fibre laser with diamond: new laser threshold magnetometry method. This project aims to create a novel class of hybrid optical fibres that open new vistas for magnetic field detection at ambient temperatures in noisy environments. The multidisciplinary project will develop the first fibre laser threshold magnetometry platform that breaks through diamond magnetometry sensitivity limits by cross-cutting established fibre laser technology with the new diamond-glass fibres and magnetometry ....Ytterbium fibre laser with diamond: new laser threshold magnetometry method. This project aims to create a novel class of hybrid optical fibres that open new vistas for magnetic field detection at ambient temperatures in noisy environments. The multidisciplinary project will develop the first fibre laser threshold magnetometry platform that breaks through diamond magnetometry sensitivity limits by cross-cutting established fibre laser technology with the new diamond-glass fibres and magnetometry concepts recently invented by the investigators. Envisaged significant benefits include non-invasive detection of magnetic fields in hard-to-access regions, an area of key interest for remote detection of submarines, early sensing of aircraft corrosion, deep brain imaging of neuronal activities and mineral exploration.Read moreRead less
Design and synthesis of boron nitride thin film coatings with exceptional properties. This project will develop new types of boron nitride thin film coatings with properties and performance tailored to meet the needs of applications ranging from advancing the lifetime of tools and components to the production of advanced semiconductor light sources.