Physics and Astronomy student Paul Gow has won the University of Southampton’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT™) Competition.

Using just one PowerPoint slide and no additional props or electronic media, postgraduate researcher Paul had just three minutes to present his research into 'Emitters for Terahertz'. Paul’s research is in developing emitters that produce Terahertz light, which is light between the frequencies of infra-red and microwaves, and is useful in applications ranging from security and medicine to research and development. Paul will now go on to represent the University at the national 3MT semi-finals in York on 14 July, where six candidates will be chosen to compete in the UK final to be held at the Vitae conference in September 2014.

Paul says: “Everyone's talks were fantastic and it's a great chance to see the kind of thing other faculties are researching. I’m really happy to have won and now I'm looking forward to representing the University in the final.â€? The 3MT™ is a skills development activity, which challenges postgraduate researchers to explain their research project to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes.

About 150 of our Postgraduate researchers have been competing in a series of local heats during February and March. The competition culminated in the University Grand Final last night (14 May) when eight finalists representing each of our eight faculties went head to head.

The other finalists competing alongside Paul were - Fei Fang, Business Law and Art 'Joint Pricing and Inventory Control for Perishable Products'

Hannah Shutt, Engineering and the Environment 'Auditory fitness for duty. Why do the armed forces need a new hearing test?'

Rokhsaneh Tehrany, Health Sciences 'Monitoring changes in lung health using speech breathing pattern analysis'

Sumei Karen Anne Tan, Humanities 'The Comfort of Horror and the Ambiguities of Youth'

Matt Loxham, Medicine 'How safe is the air in the underground?'

James Frith, Natural and Environmental Sciences 'Supercharging Lithium Batteries: The challenges of lithium-oxygen cells'

Craig Allison, Social and Human Sciences 'Removing the Gender Gap in Spatial Orientation'

Hannah Shutt was the runner-up and Paul also won the ‘People’s Choice award’, as voted for by the audience as their favourite presenter. The competition was jointly run by the University’s Researcher Development and Graduate Centre and Career Destinations, with additional support from PublicPolicy@Southampton

University of Southampton Research Fellow Dr Matt Himsworth has been taking to the national stage to talk about his research into micro magneto-optical traps.

Matt joined fellow researchers from around the UK at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in Teddington, to take part in The Ministry of Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) event to bring to market the science behind the world’s most accurate atomic clocks and sensors.

The Quantum Timing, Navigation and Sensing Showcase aims to accelerate the exploitation of the weirder aspects of quantum mechanics for sensing, highly accurate time keeping and advanced GPS-independent navigation within the UK defence sector and wider industry.

Matt said: “It was a great honour to be among those selected to showcase their research at today’s high profile national event.â€?

During his presentation Matt explained to delegates about his Dstl-funded research into a cheaper, more efficient source of laser cooled atoms that can fit on a postage stamp.

He said: “We are investigating miniatuarising a magneto optical trap that uses laser cooling to produce samples of trapped, neutral atoms millions of times colder that the temperature of outer space. The atoms are then held within an ultra high vacuum where they form the very purest quantum system you can get, perfect for use in the most precise clocks and accelerators that have been developed for the field of navigation.

“However, reaching these cold temperatures is vital for the highest precisions. Whilst room temperature vapour atomic clocks lose one second of time every 10 to 11 seconds (around 3,000 years), the current laboratory based cold clocks can take this precision down by seven further orders of magnitude, a level which would see a clock maintain accuracy to within more than half a second since before the formation of Earth.â€?

The miniaturisation process led by Matt and his colleagues at Southampton has incorporated methods and materials from the semiconductor microfabrication industry which has helped make the system leak tight, whilst the vacuum chamber has been made over 1,000 times smaller.

These developments have enabled the team to take the suitcase scale equipment down to postage stamp sized set ups. They eventually aim to manufacture the systems onto microchips for use in personal handheld devices.

Scientists from the University of Southampton are aiming to further our understanding of dark energy, the mysterious and unknown force that powers the accelerating expansion of our Universe.

The new project, which has just received more than £1.6m funding from the European Research Council, will use cosmic explosions known as supernovae, violent thermonuclear explosions from dying stars that can outshine entire galaxies, to make measurements of dark energy.

In particular, the researchers plan to study a new and rare form of supernova explosion that may allow them to make measurements in the very distant Universe, where no cosmological measurements like this have ever been made before and, from that, information about the mysterious dark energy.

At the same time, the researchers also want to understand the physics of the exploding stars better, as supernovae are responsible for most of the elements (other than hydrogen and helium) in the Universe.

Professor Mark Sullivan, who is leading the new project, says: “The nature of dark energy is one of the outstanding problems in modern physics: dark energy comprises around 70 per cent of the Universe and will dictate its ultimate fate, yet we have little clear idea as to what dark energy is.

“Not only is understanding dark energy a challenge, but these new explosion types suggest that the tools that we use for its study may also be poorly understood. Research such as this continues our exploration and understanding of the Universe that surrounds and intrigues us.â€?

The project, ‘Supernova: Physics and Cosmology in the Next Decade’, starts on 1 June and features a team of three postdoctoral researchers and two postgraduate students. The grant will provide five years of confirmed funding to build a world-class team to perform the research.

Scientists from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with the Universities of Sheffield and Crete, have developed a new hybrid energy transfer system, which mimics the processes responsible for photosynthesis.

From photosynthesis to respiration, the processes of light absorption and its transfer into energy represent elementary and essential reactions that occur in any biological living system.

This energy transfer is known as Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), a radiationless transmission of energy that occurs on the nanometer scale from a donor molecule to an acceptor molecule. The donor molecule is the dye or chromophore that initially absorbs the energy and the acceptor is the chromophore to which the energy is subsequently transferred without any molecular collision. However, FRET is a strongly distance dependent process which occurs over a scale of typically 1 to 10 nm.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature Materials, the researchers demonstrate an alternate non-radiative, intermolecular energy transfer that exploits the intermediating role of light confined in an optical cavity. The advantage of this new technique which exploits the formation of quantum states admixture of light and matter, is the length over which the interaction takes places, that is in fact, considerably longer than conventional FRET-type processes.

Co-author Dr Niccolo Somaschi, from the University of Southampton’s Hybrid Photonics group (which is led by Professor Pavlos Lagoudakis, co-author of the paper), says: “The possibility to transfer energy over distances comparable to the wavelength of light has the potential to be of both fundamental and applied interest. Our deep understanding of energy transfer elucidates the basic mechanisms behind the process of photosynthesis in biological systems and therefore gets us closer to the reproduction of fully synthetic systems which mimic biological functionalities. At the fundamental level, the present work suggests that the coherent coupling of molecules may be directly involved in the energy transfer process which occurs in the photosynthesis.

“On the applied perspective instead, organic semiconductors continue to receive significant interest for application in optoelectronic devices, for example light-emitting or photovoltaic devices, in which performance is dependent on our ability to control the formation and transport of carriers in molecular systems.â€?

The new device consists of an optical cavity made by two metallic mirrors which trap the photons in a confined environment where two different organic molecules reside in. By engineering the spacing between the mirrors based on the optical properties of the organic materials, it is possible to create a new quantum state that is a combination of the trapped photons and the excited states in the molecules. The photon essentially "glues" together these quantum mechanical states, forming a new half-light half-matter particle, called polariton, which is responsible for the efficient transfer of energy from one material to the other.

Scientists have found that two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures with asymmetric design enable a new quantum mechanism, triggering the emission of tunable light at terahertz frequencies—with unprecedented efficiency.

The researchers, from the University of Southampton and Imperial College London, found that quantum wells, 2D nanostructures formed of several layers of semi-conductor alloys placed on top of each other like a sandwich, can enhance light emission in a technological challenging spectral range.

It is hoped that the findings will have an impact on photonic and optoelectronic devices across a broad range of applications, including harmless medical imaging and security scanning. Electrons are trapped in the structure and this confinement can be exploited to enhance their capacity to interact with light at given frequencies much lower than the laser frequency at which they are excited: the system emits light by interacting with “vacuum fluctuationsâ€? that permeate space, according to quantum theory.

Nathan Shammah, from the University’s Quantum Light and Matter (QLM) group and co-author of the study says: “As the 2D nanostructures can be manufactured with an asymmetric design, this allows light to interact with trapped electrons in a way that is not otherwise allowed. This interaction process, leading to the emission of light at lower frequencies, has not been observed in atoms because those are very symmetrical systems and symmetry rules prevent the transitions that trigger this light emission from happening.â€?

In the paper, which is published in Physical Review B, the researchers predict that by shining light on a 2D asymmetric nanostructure with a laser that is tuned at resonance with the electronic transitions that can occur in the nanostructure, in addition to the scattered laser light, this 2D device would emit light at other frequencies, which can be tuned simply by changing the laser power.

Nathan, who co-authored the paper with Dr Simone De Liberato, from the QLM group, and Professor Chris Phillips from Imperial College London, adds: “Due to the large oscillating dipole and high density of electrons that characterise these “artificial atomsâ€? formed of asymmetric 2D structures, the control of light-matter coupling can be greatly enhanced, triggering spontaneous light emission, similar to what occurs in LEDs lamps.

“This new mechanism is perfectly suited for the terahertz frequency range, which spans from above the current wi-fi bandwidth to below the visible light spectrum, where the lack of practical light emitters constitutes a serious technological gap.â€?

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton, has been named as the most influential woman in UK IT by a national computing website.

Computer Weekly recognised Dame Wendy as being number one in the top 25 women who have had a major impact on UK IT.

The winners were announced at a special event in London this afternoon and were selected by a judging panel of employers and IT leaders from across industry, as well as readers of the digital magazine that is the leading provider news, analysis, opinion, information and services for the UK IT community.

Dame Wendy joined 24 other women who Computer Weekly acknowledges represent role models that will be important to the future diversity and success of the UK’s high-tech economy.

“I'm delighted and flattered to have been named as the most influential woman in UK IT, alongside such distinguished names. I applaud Computer Weekly for their efforts to highlight the vital role of women in IT in the UK, which is far more significant than is often realised,â€? said Dame Wendy.

“Such publicity will encourage others to consider careers in an industry that is one of the most exciting and important to be in today,â€? she added.

Dame Wendy has held many leadership roles in addition to her academic research in computer science, in the development of the World Wide Web and, more recently, in establishing and developing the new discipline of Web Science.

With Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt, Dame Wendy co-founded the Web Science Research Initiative in 2006. She is currently a Director of the Web Science Trust, which has a global mission to support the development of research, education and thought leadership in Web Science. Dame Wendy is also a Director of the University’s recently launched Web Science Institute, which brings together world-leading multidisciplinary expertise to tackle the most pressing global challenges facing the World Wide Web and wider society today.

She was President of the British Computer Society; the first non-North American to lead the Association of Computing Machinery, the world's largest organisation for computer professionals; a member of the Prime Ministers Council for Science and Technology; Senior Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering; and a member of the Research Council of the European Research Council.

Dame Wendy became a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2009 UK New Year’s Honours list and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 2009.

Hundreds of schoolchildren across the UK and South Africa are getting their brains into gear this week to take part in a pioneering challenge run by the University of Southampton to discover potential alien activity in space.

The SETi Cipher Challenge sets teams of pupils aged 14 to 18 a daily challenge to decipher possible radio signal communications that astronomers believe may be messages from aliens.

The teams can participate in two challenges. The first is a Science Challenge for decoding the message and revealing what it says about the aliens. The second is a Media Report Challenge that asks them to produce a fictional story about the impact of alien signals on people around planet Earth.

Every day mission control in Physics and Astronomy at the University release a cipher and teams are awarded marks for their entries.

At the end of the week-long competition the top scoring teams will be awarded vouchers as their prizes, up to the value of £300.

Project co-ordinator Professor Nick Evans said: “This is the first time we have run this challenge and the response has been overwhelming. The pupils are really rising to the challenge deciphering the daily codes and producing news stories, poems and videos.

“We hope that by organising different challenges such as this, we help forge an interest in physics and astronomy in young pupils and inspire them to become the next generation of scientists.â€?

Student satisfaction in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton is increasing according to the latest National Student Survey (NSS) results.

94 per cent of Physics and Astronomy final year undergraduates said they were satisfied with the quality of their course, a rise of nine percentage points from 2013. Among MPhys students, 97 per cent expressed their satisfaction with their course.

Professor Phil Charles, Head of Physics and Astronomy, said: “We are delighted that our students are increasingly satisfied with the quality of their learning experience and their course. This is recognition of our continual course development over recent years and our sustained efforts to listen and respond to our students’ opinions and feedback.â€?

The National Student Survey has been conducted annually since 2005 by HEFCE and IpsosMori and asks final year undergraduates for feedback on their universities and courses. Core questions in the survey cover the student learning experience including: teaching on my course; assessment and feedback; academic support; organisation and management; learning resources; personal development; students’ union and overall satisfaction.

The first hologram exhibition to be hosted in Southampton launches this month.

‘A Virtual Artist’ by Pearl John from the University of Southampton is on show from 26 August to 26 September in the Special Collections Gallery and the Level 4 Gallery of the University’s Hartley Library.

The exhibition is a collection of personal objects and photographs from a number of Pearl’s family members, ranging from the 19o0’s until the present day. These are overlaid by translucent holograms, containing text and images about the person or object, which recedes back into the object. The depth of the holographic image relates to the age of the object and family member – further back within the hologram represents further back in time.

Pearl, who is Public Engagement Leader for Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton, says: “The exhibition is my own ‘special collection’ of objects and holographic artworks, which have been collected to form an archive of my family. The objects hold memories and stories and the holographic images make the invisible visible.â€?

‘A Virtual Artist’ also includes a selection of Pearl’s own art collection– such as eight lenticular images, which were shown at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition in July 2012. The data which inspired these animated art works was provided by scientists and astronomers working with lasers, magnetism, astronomy and particle physics at the University of Southampton. Pearl explored different time intervals from ‘pico-second’ laser pulses – produced in trillionths of a second – to black hole events occurring millions of years ago.

Pearl adds: “I hope that the novelty of the non-traditional art form, which has not previously been exhibited in Southampton arts venues, will help attract a new audience to the Gallery from both inside and outside of the University.â€?

The exhibition will be on show every day from 9am to 9pm in the Level 4 Gallery of the Hartley Library and from 10am to 4pm on weekdays in the Special Collections Gallery. The private view for ‘A Virtual Artist’ is at 5pm on Monday 8 September. To attend, please contact Carol Mapstone at C.Mapstone@soton.ac.uk or on 023 8059 2097.

Using a radio telescope with frequencies just above those of commercial FM radio stations, a European team of astronomers has obtained the most sensitive image of a galaxy below 1 GHz.

The team viewed the “Whirlpool Galaxyâ€? Messier 51 (M51), about 30 million light years away, with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope in the frequency range 115-175 MHz, just above the normal commercial FM radio frequency band of 88-108 MHz. These results are the first LOFAR observations of a nearby galaxy.

LOFAR consists of 38 stations in the Netherlands, 6 stations in Germany and one station each in the UK, France and Sweden. The signals from all stations are then combined in a powerful computing cluster located at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Radio astronomy shows two crucial components of galaxies that are invisible to optical telescopes – cosmic ray electrons and magnetic fields – which play an important role in the stability and evolution of galaxies.

With LOFAR’s high sensitivity, the astronomers detected electrons and magnetic fields in the spiral arms and extended disc of M51, 40,000 light years away from the galaxy’s centre – much further out than had ever been traced before.

The research, which is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, was led by David Mulcahy from the University of Southampton’s Astronomy Group. It was conducted for his PhD work at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.

“Low-frequency radio waves are important as they carry information about electrons of relatively low energies that are able to propagate further away from their places of origin in the star-forming spiral arms and are able to illuminate the magnetic fields in the outer parts of galaxies,â€? says David. “We need to know whether magnetic fields are expelled from galaxies and what their strength is out there.â€?

“This beautiful image, coupled with the important scientific result it represents, illustrates the fantastic advances that can be made at low radio frequencies with the LOFAR telescope,â€? adds co-author Dr Anna Scaife from the University of Southampton. “Unravelling the mysteries of magnetic fields is crucial to understanding how our Universe works. For too long, many of the big questions about magnetic fields have simply been untestable and this new era of radio astronomy is very exciting.â€?

For many decades, radio astronomy has been unable to explore low frequencies below 300 MHz because the ionosphere around the earth acts as a barrier of low-frequency radio waves. The only observations were of poor resolution and no details could be made out.

“This opens a new window to the Universe where we do not know what galaxies will look like,â€? says Rainer Beck from the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy, who supervised David’s PhD project. “Maybe we will see how galaxies are magnetically connected to intergalactic space. This is a key experiment in preparation for the planned Square Kilometre Array (SKA) that should tell us how cosmic magnetic fields are generated,â€? he adds.