Programme

Invited talks

Optofluidic hollow-core photonic crystal fibres (HC-PCF) enable low-loss propagation of light at the centre of a microfluidic channel. The resulting well-defined optical forces can be used to trap and propel microparticles [1] and biological cells [2] over long distances. The particle dynamics can be monitored using in-fibre Doppler velocimetry [3], offering a unique way to study viscous- and thermal forces in optofluidic channels. For example: particle propulsion experiments in air-filled HC-PCF [4] unveiled an unexpected optothermal trapping mechanism [5], which has potential applications in lab-on-a-chip devices.

Furthermore, a coherent superposition of co-propagating higher-order waveguide modes can create a mode-based "optical conveyor belt" that combines long-range transport with a positional accuracy of about 1 μm [5]. This work led to the development of a "flying particle" sensor that maps the electric field strength along a HC-PCF by measuring the transverse displacement of an optically propelled charged microparticle [6]. This new type of fibre-optic sensor allows the electric field to be mapped with very high positional accuracy over long distances and is suitable for otherwise inaccessible or harsh environments.

References

[1] T. G. Euser et al., Opt. Lett. 34, 3674 (2009).
[2] S. Unterkofler et al., J. Biophotonics 6, 743–752 (2013).
[3] M. K. Garbos et al., Opt. Lett. 36, 2020 (2011).
[4] O. A. Schmidt et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 024502 (2012).
[5] O. A. Schmidt et al., Opt. Express 21, 29383-29391 (2013).
[6] D. S. Bykov et al., Nature Phot. 9, 461–465 (2015).

In 2007, Tijmen Euser completed his PhD research on "Ultrafast optical switching of photonic crystals” in the group of Prof. Willem Vos at the University of Twente and the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) in the Netherlands. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Philip Russell at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) in Erlangen, Germany. Over the past years, his MPL team has demonstrated a range of applications of hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (HC-PCF), such as: flying-particle sensors based on microparticles that are optically guided along a HC-PCF, controlled excitation of higher-order fibre-modes, and photochemistry on sub-µl volumes in PCF. In August 2015, Tijmen was appointed to a Lectureship at the Cavendish Laboratory, where his Optofluidics lab in the Maxwell Centre for the physical sciences investigates optical manipulation of nanoparticles and biomolecules as well as photocatalysis in optofluidic waveguides.

The talk will cover the smart and disruptive sensing technology behind the creation of Cambridge CMOS Sensors. The business model, the ups and downs, the relationship with the investors will also be discussed. The talk will finish with a look at the future of spin-off companies in the area of physical and chemical sensors.

Prof. Florin Udrea is a professor in semiconductor engineering and head of the High Voltage Microelectronics and Sensors Laboratory at University of Cambridge. He received his PhD degree in power devices from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1995. He is currently leading the High Voltage Microelectronics and Sensors group that has won an international reputation during the last 20 years. Prof. Udrea has published over 400 papers in journals and international conferences. He holds more than 100 international patents in power semiconductor devices and sensors. Prof. Florin Udrea co-founded four companies, Camsemi in power ICs, Cambridge CMOS Sensors in the field of smart sensors, Cambridge Microelectronics in Power Devices and Flusso in Flow Sensors. For his 'outstanding personal contribution to British Engineering' he has been awarded the Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2012, and he has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2015.

New sensing technologies are helping to drive biomedical optics from basic research into clinical tools that can impact patient management. I will start with a brief overview of the field of biomedical optics and consider the challenges for clinical application. I will then highlight some key examples of breakthrough technologies that are enabling translational research in my laboratory, with a focus on endoscopic imaging in cancer diagnosis.

Dr Sarah Bohndiek completed her PhD in Radiation Physics at University College London in 2008 and then worked in both the UK (at Cambridge) and the USA (at Stanford) as a postdoctoral fellow in molecular imaging. During that time, Sarah published over 30 research articles on molecular imaging of cancer, which have received over 1000 citations. Sarah is now jointly appointed in the Department of Physics and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research team develops new techniques for spectral imaging of oxygen and oxidative stress in cancer, to study both disease development and the emergence of drug resistance. They also aim to translate their optical molecular imaging approaches into the clinic. She was recently awarded the Institute of Physics Paterson Medal, WISE Research Award and MSCA Prize in recognition of this work.

Developmental processes are highly dynamic and span many temporal and spatial scales. A whole-embryo view of morphogenesis with subcellular resolution is essential to unravel the interconnected dynamics at the varying scales of development, from interactions within cells to those acting across the whole embryo. Bridging scales from the submicron to the millimeter range with a temporal resolution of several seconds (combined with a total imaging time of several hours) not only poses tremendous challenges for modern microscopy methods but also requires powerful computational approaches for data handling, processing and image analysis. I will present our recent development in light-sheet microscopy and will highlight applications at the interface of cell and developmental biology.

Lars Hufnagel holds a group leader position in the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. He studied physics and mathematics and obtained a PhD in the field of quantum chaos at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation, Göttingen. In his postdoctoral research he investigated the spatial spread of human epidemics and the mechanics description of living tissues at the the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, California. His lab at the EMBL focuses on novel imaging techniques for bioimaging. He holds several patents and is the cofounder of two startup companies: Acquifer AG for high content screening microscopy and data analysis, Luxendo GmbH develops light sheet microscopes.

Sensing technologies are widely used for volcano monitoring worldwide and deliver critical information for operational hazard assessment. The data also provide important insights into the fundamental processes that drive volcanic activity. This presentation will report on sensing strategies employed on Erebus volcano, Antarctica, reviewing key observations, their interpretation, and some of the challenges of working such a harsh environment. Technologies to be discussed include atmospheric spectroscopy, radar altimetry, electrochemical sensing and thermal imaging.

Clive Oppenheimer's main research interests are the controls of volcanic degassing on differentiation and redox state of magmas, and on eruptive processes; the atmospheric chemistry of volcanic plumes; the environmental, climatic and human impacts of volcanism in antiquity; and development of environmental sensing techniques and applications. His main research focus has been Erebus volcano in Antarctica where he has worked with the US Antarctic Program since 2003.

With a focus on diverse applications in the electronics and display industry, we aim at developing integrated process technology for nanomaterials, like semiconducting nanowires, 2D materials and their heterostructures [1]. In order to go beyond empirical process calibrations, we systematically use in-situ metrology to reveal the mechanisms that govern the growth, interfaces and device behaviour of these nanomaterials in realistic process environments. This talk will focus on recent results [2-4] on group IV and III-V nanowire growth, revealing some of the fundamental growth mechanisms and highlighting the use of these structures as model systems to explore generic aspects of phase behaviour, nucleation and interface dynamics in nanoscale systems.

[1] Hofmann et al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 6, 2714 (2015).

[2] Panciera et al., Nature Materials 14, 820 (2015).

[3] Jacobsson et al. Nature 531, 317 (2016).

[4] Panciera et al. Nature Comm. 7, 12271 (2016).

Stephan Hofmann is a Professor of Nanotechnology at the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge, where he heads a group and large research effort on advanced nanomaterials and their device integration. He holds degrees from the Technische Universität München and the University of Cambridge. He is the recipient of an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant, leads large grants/consortium on CVD enabled 2D Material Technology and is co-director of the Doctoral Training Centre in Nanotechnology. Among his numerous awards is the 2014 ACS Journal of Physical Chemistry C Lectureship.

What do 4% of the world's passenger vehicles that were built last year, the British Wheelchair Rugby Team, and Spiderman all have in common? They are all examples of things that have benefited from location-sensor technology. This talk will introduce how a state-of-the-art ultra-wideband radio location system works, and discusses some of the ways in which it is transforming manufacturing and other industries today.

Paul is one of the founders of AIM-listed Ubisense, the award-winning location solutions company. He is an experienced systems designer, and manages the hardware development and manufacturing team. He studied Computer Science at the University of Manchester, where he was awarded the Professor's Prize and the Kilburn Prize for outstanding academic achievement. He went on to receive his PhD in 'Analogue and Mixed-mode Simulation', before joining AT&T Laboratories in Cambridge. There, he worked on the early systems software and middleware for the innovative 'Sentient Computing' project, exploring potential applications for location-based computing, and led a number of sensor-based projects including a highly reconfigurable 32-bit processor with a novel power-optimising tool chain, a range of pioneering networked appliances, and a high-performance low-power wireless module for mobile sensor nodes.

Nervous systems often comprise many millions of neurons that are intricately connected and electrically excitable. Connectivity and excitability support many aspects of nervous system function. Somehow, networks of neurons self organise and maintain activity levels in a functional range during development and throughout an animal's lifetime. Dense interconnectivity and highly nonlinear, excitable neural dynamics mean that this is not a trivial problem to solve. I will show experimental evidence for voltage-gated ion channel dependent sensors of long-term neuronal activation that allow neurons to tune their excitability by regulating ion channel expression. Simple models show that a surprisingly crude activity sensor can maintain neural properties by coordinating multiple nonlinear, voltage-dependent membrane conductances.

Dr O'Leary received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2009, switching fields from pure mathematics to neurophysiology. He has since worked on many aspects of neural physiology as an experimentalist and as a theorist. Before coming to Cambridge he worked with Eve Marder in Brandeis University, where he was a Sloan Swartz Computational Neuroscience Fellow and recipient of the 2014 Gruber International Prize from the Society for Neuroscience. He joined the Engineering Department in January 2016 as part of a mission to unite control engineers and neuroscientists.

Every temperature sensor requires calibration against a more accurate standard. But how do we know that the standard is correct? In the end we require a calibration against a primary thermometer, a device which infers the temperature from knowledge of basic physics.

At NPL we have recently built the most accurate primary thermometer in history which has revealed with unprecedented resolution the (small) errors in every other thermometer on Earth. The device is based around a spherical acoustic resonator, and infers the temperature from precision measurements of the speed of sound in argon.

In this talk I will describe how the device works and make a primary temperature measurement (live!) using a 3-D printed replica. Finally I will discuss the opportunities for exploiting acoustic phenomena in a wider range of sensor applications.

Michael de Podesta (56) graduated with a BSc in Physics from Sussex University in 1981 and then in 1985 completed a DPhil in the electronic properties of metals at cryogenic temperatures. After postdoctoral work at Bristol University, he was appointed a lecturer at the University of London in 1987, and joined NPL in 2000, working mainly on problems related to temperature measurement. In 2013 he led the team which published the lowest uncertainty estimate of the Boltzmann constant and in 2015 published the most accurate thermometry in human history.

Michael is a chartered physicist, a member of the Institute of Physics, and in 2009 was awarded an MBE for services to Science.