Grants and collaborations
Our group is supported by number of grants and collaboration schemes from the Australian Research Council (ARC), Defence Science and Technology Group (DST-Group), and the University of Queensland:
ARC Discovery Projects: Vortex Matter Simulators of Two-Dimensional Melting (2025-2028)
This project aims to address long-standing questions regarding phase transitions in two-dimensional (2D) systems, impacting the development of advanced materials and electronics. It will use the team’s recently invented vortex-matter simulator of 2D charge systems to precisely study phase transitions in a configurable, defect free system. The expected outcomes of this project will be to determine the hierarchy of defect-seeded melting of a 2D crystal. Outcomes will provide enhanced understanding of 2D systems and establishment of new international collaborations in experimental quantum physics, benefitting the development of advanced electronics and manufacturing, and enhancing Australia’s reputation on the international stage.
Quantum 2032 Challenge, Queensland State Government — CERQus: Cavity-Enhanced Rydberg Quantum Sensors for Bioelectrics (2025-2028)
The The Quantum 2032 Challenge funds projects that have the potential to showcase how Queensland's quantum technologies can provide innovative solutions and enhancements for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The aim of this project is to apply atomic sensors utilising Rydberg states to meet open problems in the medical assessment and performance optimisation of athletes, with particular focus on sensitive monitoring of cardiac and brain electrical signals.
Defence Science and Technology PhD Scholarship (2020-2022)
Defence Science Technology Group, Next Generation Technologies Fund, Quantum Research Network PhD Scholarship (2020-2024), “Precision sensing with trapped superfluids”. $210k, PhD Scholarship grant, supervisors Dr Tyler Neely, Prof. Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop.
ARC Future Fellowship - Turbulent Cascades in Superfluid Flatland (2020-2024)
This ARC funded Future Fellowship project will determine how vortex dynamics redistribute energy across broad length scales in superfluids, how turbulence arises from instabilities, and how turbulence redistributes energy in multicomponent superfluids. The results will be beneficial to the understanding of the physics of quantum superfluids, and will inform the engineering of quantum-enhanced devices that utilise trapped superfluid media for precision sensing.
Defence Science and Technology Grant: Inertial sensing with a quantum gas phonon interferometer (2019-2022)
While trapped atom interferometers can provide orders of magnitude improvement on inertial sensing with phonons, for a similar enclosed area, they are complicated by the effects of atom-atom interactions. An alternative approach is to use trapped standing wave phonons in a BEC, where the atom-atom interactions give rise to the fundamental mechanism of the interferometer. This project will examine the feasibility of standing-wave phonons for rotation sensing.
ARC Discovery Projects: Spin vortex dynamics in a ferromagnetic superfluid (2020-2023)
Magnetic spin vortices are stable whirlpool-like objects that can spontaneously form when magnetic materials are rapidly cooled. This project aims to understand and manipulate spin vortices in a magnetic quantum fluid, one of the cleanest and most controllable magnetic systems. The significance is that spin vortices are potentially fundamental elements of future electronic technologies for advanced storage and logic. The expected outcomes are the ability to create spin vortices on demand, and the characterisation of their suitability for future applications.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (2017-2024)
FLEET is pursuing the following research themes to develop systems in which electrical current can flow with near-zero resistance, including Topological Materials, Exciton Superfluids, Light-transformed materials, enabled by the following technologies: atomically-thin materials and non-device fabrication. FLEET addresses a grand challenge: reducing the energy used in information technology, which now accounts for 8% of the electricity use on Earth, and is doubling every 10 years. The current, silicon-based technology will stop becoming more efficient in the next decade as Moore’s law comes to an end.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS) (2011–2022)
The future of technology lies in controlling the quantum world. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQuS) will deliver the building blocks of future quantum technologies and, critically, ensure Australian primacy in this endeavour. Three strategic research programs will target Quantum Measurement and Control; Synthetic Quantum Systems and Simulation; and Quantum-Enabled Sensors and Metrology.
ARC Discovery Projects: Riding a quantum wave: transport and flow of atomic quantum fluids (2015–2018)
n our lab, we use lasers and magnetic fields to cool tiny samples of millions of atoms to temperatures a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero. At such cold temperatures they form a superfluid known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, that flows with zero viscosity. Using tailored light fields to trap and guide the atoms, we will build rudimentary atomic circuits, and coax the superfluid to flow through a channel between two reservoirs, firstly with thermodynamic gradients, and secondly by building a quantum pump.
Optimised trapping technology for atomtronic circuits and biological systems (2017)
With our succesful implementation of DMD-based optical trapping, we received a seed funding grant to collaborate with Dr. Jinyang Liang of INRS (Quebec). This goal of this grant was to develop techniques for the optimisation of greyscale DMD potentials.