The University of Southampton

Published: 3 May 2019
Illustration
Artist's impression of the V404 Cygni black hole X-ray binary system. Credit: ICRAR

Researchers from the University of Southampton have analysed bright outbursts from a spinning black hole which could help explain how the phenomena shape the universe's galaxies.

The international study, which was led by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Australia, observed swinging sprays of light-speed plasma clouds from a black hole some 8,000 light years from our solar system.

The findings, published in the multidisciplinary Nature journal, represent the first time these jets of hot gas have been found to not travel in a straight line. If large, supermassive black holes behave in the same way, then these jets might impact the galaxy by initiating or halting the formation of stars.

Dr Matt Middleton and Dr Diego Altamirano from Southampton's School of Physics and Astronomy played a key role in the study which examined the V404 Cygni system.

Read the full story here.

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Research

Research interests

My research focusses on the interaction between light and matter at the nanoscale.

Teaching

Publications

Günter, G., Anappara, A.A., Hees, J., Sell, A., Biasiol, G., Sorba, L., De Liberato, S., Ciuti, C., Tredicucci, A., Leitenstorfer, A. and Huber, R. (2009) Sub-cycle switch-on of ultrastrong light–matter interaction. Nature, 458 (7235), 178-181. (doi:10.1038/nature07838).

Carusotto, I., Gerace, D., Tureci, H., De Liberato, S., Ciuti, C. and Imamoǧlu, A. (2009) Fermionized photons in an array of driven dissipative nonlinear cavities. Physical Review Letters, 103 (3), [4pp.]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.033601).

Anappara, Aji A., De Liberato, Simone, Tredicucci, Alessandro, Ciuti, Cristiano, Biasiol, Giorgio, Sorba, Lucia and Beltram, Fabio (2009) Signatures of the ultrastrong light-matter coupling regime. Physical Review B, 79 (20), [4pp.]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.79.201303).

Scalari, G., Maissen, C., Turcinkova, D., Hagenmuller, D., De Liberato, S., Ciuti, C., Reichl, C., Schuh, D., Wegscheider, W., Beck, M. and Faist, J. (2012) Ultrastrong coupling of the cyclotron transition of a 2D electron gas to a THz metamaterial. Science, 335 (6074), 1323-1326. (doi:10.1126/science.1216022).

De Liberato, Simone and Ciuti, Cristiano (2009) Stimulated scattering and lasing of intersubband cavity polaritons. Physical Review Letters, 102 (13), [4pp.]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.136403).

Cirio, Mauro, De Liberato, Simone, Lambert, Neill and Nori, Franco (2016) Ground state electroluminescence. Physical Review Letters, 116 (11), [113601]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.113601).

Cwik, Justyna A., Kirton, Peter, De Liberato, Simone and Keeling, Jonathan (2016) Excitonic spectral features in strongly-coupled organic polaritons. Physical Review A, 93 (33840), 1-12. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.93.033840).

Gubbin, Christopher, Martini, Francesco, Politi, Alberto, Maier, Stefan and De Liberato, Simone (2016) Coherent coupling between localised and propagating phonon polaritons. Physical Review Letters, 116, [246402]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.246402).

De Liberato, Simone (2014) Light-matter decoupling in the deep strong coupling regime: the breakdown of the Purcell Effect. Physical Review Letters, 112 (1), 1-5, [16401]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.016401).

Gubbin, Christopher, Maier, Stefan A. and De Liberato, Simone (2016) Real-space Hopfield diagonalization of inhomogeneous dispersive media. Physical Review B, 94, 1-9. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.94.205301).

Gubbin, Christopher R., Maier, Stefan A. and De Liberato, Simone (2017) Theoretical investigation of phonon polaritons in SiC micropillar resonators. Physical Review B, 95 (35313), 1-9. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.95.035313).

Gubbin, Christopher and De Liberato, Simone (2017) Theory of nonlinear polaritonics: χ(2) scattering on a β-SiC surface. ACS Photonics. (doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00020).

Cortese, Erika, Lagoudakis, Pavlos and De Liberato, Simone (2017) Collective optomechanical effects in cavity quantum electrodynamics. Physical Review Letters, 119 (4), [043604]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.043604).

Brodbeck, Sebastian, De Liberato, Simone, Amthor, M., Klaas, M., Kamp, M., Worschech, L., Schneider, C. and Höfling, S. (2017) Experimental verification of the very strong coupling regime in a GaAs quantum well microcavity. Physical Review Letters, 119 (2), [027401]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.027401).

Shammah, Nathan, Lambert, Neill, Nori, Franco and De Liberato, Simone (2017) Superradiance with local phase-breaking effects. Physical Review A, 96, [023863]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.96.023863).

Garziano, Luigi, Ridolfo, Alessandro, De Liberato, Simone and Savasta, Salvatore (2017) Cavity QED in the ultrastrong coupling regime: photon bunching from the emission of individual dressed qubits. ACS Photonics, 4 (9), 2345–2351. (doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00635).

Cortese, Erika, Garziano, Luigi and De Liberato, Simone (2017) Polariton spectrum of the Dicke-Ising model. Physical Review A, 1-14. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.96.053861).

Gubbin, Christopher R. and De Liberato, Simone (2018) Theory of four-wave-mixing in phonon polaritons. ACS Photonics, 5 (2), 284–288. (doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00863).

De Liberato, Simone (2017) Virtual photons in the ground state of a dissipative system. Nature Communications, 8, [1465]. (doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01504-5).

De Liberato, Simone (2018) Lasing from dressed dots. Nature Photonics, 12. (doi:10.1038/s41566-017-0074-3).

Grant, Richard T., Jayaprakash, Rahul, Coles, David M., Musser, Andrew, De Liberato, Simone, Samuel, Ifor D.W., Turnbull, Graham A., Clark, Jenny and Lidzey, David G. (2018) Strong coupling in a microcavity containing β- carotene. Optics Express, 26 (3), 3320-3327. (doi:10.1364/OE.26.003320).

Liew, T.C.H., Rubo, Y.G., Sheremet, A.S., De Liberato, Simone, Shelykh, I.A., Laussy, F.P. and Kavokin, Alexey (2016) Quantum statistics of bosonic cascades. New Journal of Physics, 18, 1-10, [023041]. (doi:10.1088/1367-2630/18/2/023041).

Manceau, J.-M., Tran, N.L., Biasol, G., Laurent, T., Sagnes, I., Beaudoin, G., De Liberato, S., Carusotto, I. and Colombelli, R. (2018) Resonant intersubband polariton-LO phonon scattering in an optically pumped polaritonic device. Applied Physics Letters, 112, [191106]. (doi:10.1063/1.5029893).

Berte, Rodrigo, Gubbin, Christopher R., Wheeler, Virginia D., Giles, Alexander J., Giannini, Vincenzo, Maier, Stefan A., De Liberato, Simone and Caldwell, Joshua D. (2018) Sub-nanometer thin oxide film sensing with localized surface phonon polaritons. ACS Photonics. (doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01482).

Sanchez Munoz, Carlos, Nori, Franco and De Liberato, Simone (2018) Resolution of superluminal signalling in non-perturbative cavity quantum electrodynamics. Nature Communications, 9 (1), [1924]. (doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04339-w).

Razdolski, Ilya, Passler, Nikolai Christian, Gubbin, Christopher R., Winta, Christopher J., Cernansky, Robert, Martini, Francesco, Politi, Alberto, Maier, Stefan A., Wolf, Martin, Paarmann, Alexander and Liberato, Simone De (2018) Second harmonic generation from strongly coupled localized and propagating phonon-polariton modes. Physical Review B, 98, [125425]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.98.125425).

Passler, Nikolai Christian, Gubbin, Christopher R., Folland, Thomas Graeme, Razdolski, Ilya, Katzer, D. Scott, Storm, David F., Wolf, Martin, De Liberato, Simone, Caldwell, Joshua D. and Paarmann, Alexander (2018) Strong coupling of epsilon-near-zero phonon polaritons in polar dielectric heterostructures. Nano Letters, 18 (7), 4285-4292. (doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01273).

Passler, Nikolai, Razdolski, Ilya, Gewinner, Sandy, Schöllkopf, Wieland, De Liberato, Simone, Gubbin, Christopher, Caldwell, Joshua, Wolf, Martin and Paarmann, Alexander (2018) Nonlinear response and strong coupling of surface phonon polaritons. In, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics, Part F3) Springer-Verlag, pp. 425-426. (doi:10.1007/978-94-024-1544-5_44).

De Bernardis, Daniele, Pilar, Philipp, Jaako, Tuomas, De Liberato, Simone and Rabl, Peter (2018) Breakdown of gauge invariance in ultrastrong-coupling cavity QED. Physical Review A, 98, [053819]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.98.053819).

De Liberato, Simone (2018) Open quantum systems with local and collective incoherent processes: Efficient numerical simulations using permutational invariance. Physical Review A, 98, 1-34, [063815]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.98.063815).

Ballarini, Dario and De Liberato, Simone (2019) Polaritonics: From microcavities to sub-wavelength confinement. Nanophotonics. (doi:10.1515/nanoph-2018-0188).

Cortese, Erika, Carusotto, Iacopo, Colombelli, Raffaele and De Liberato, Simone (2019) Strong coupling of ionizing transitions. Optica, 6 (3), 354-361. (doi:10.1364/OPTICA.6.000354).

Frisk Kockum, Anton, Miranowicz, Adam, De Liberato, Simone, Savasta, Salvatore and Nori, Franco (2019) Ultrastrong coupling between light and matter. Nature Reviews Physics, 1, 19-40.

Gubbin, Christopher, Berte, Rodrigo, Meeker, Michael, Giles, Alexander, Ellis, Chase, Tischler, Joseph, Wheeler, Virginia, Maier, Stefan, Caldwell, Joshua D. and De Liberato, Simone (2019) Hybrid longitudinal-transverse phonon polaritons. Nature Communications, 10 (1), 1-6, [1682]. (doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09414-4).

Cirio, Mauro, Shammah, Nathan, Lambert, Neill, De Liberato, Simone and Nori, Franco (2019) Multielectron ground state electroluminescence. Physical Review Letters, 122 (19), [190403]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.190403).

De Liberato, Simone (2019) Electro-optical sampling of quantum vacuum fluctuations in dispersive dielectrics. Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, 100 (3), [031801]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.100.031801).

De Liberato, Simone and Gubbin, Christopher (2020) Optical nonlocality in polar dielectrics. Physical Review X. (In Press)

Mancini, Andrea, Gubbin, Christopher, Berté, Rodrigo, Martini, Francesco, Politi, Alberto, Cortés, Emiliano, Li, Yi, De Liberato, Simone and Maier, Stefan A. (2020) Near-field spectroscopy of cylindrical phonon-polariton antennas. ACS Nano, 14 (7), 8508-8517. (doi:10.1021/acsnano.0c02784).

Cortese, Erika, Tran, Ngoc Linh, Manceau, Jean-Michel, Bousseksou, Adel, Carusotto, Iacopo, Biasol, Giorgio, Colombelli, Raffaele and De Liberato, Simone (2020) Excitons bound by photon exchange. Nature Physics, 1-7. (doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0994-6).

Gubbin, Christopher and De Liberato, Simone (2020) Impact of phonon nonlocality on nanogap and nanolayer polar resonators. Physical Review B. (In Press)

Gubbin, Christopher and De Liberato, Simone (2020) Nonlocal scattering matrix description of anisotropic polar heterostructures. Physical Review B. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.102.235301).

Lu, Guanyu, Gubbin, Christopher, Nolen, J. Ryan, Folland, Thomas Graeme, Tadjer, Marko J., De Liberato, Simone and Caldwell, Joshua D. (2021) Engineering the spectral and spatial dispersion of thermal emission via polariton-phonon strong coupling. Nano Letters, 21 (4), 1831-1838. (doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04767).

(2016) Data underpinning - Excitonic spectral features in strongly-coupled organic polaritons. University of St Andrews doi:10.17630/deae7011-5aa6-4c15-8754-5ba6393bc67b [Dataset]

Rajabali, Shima, Cortese, Erika, Beck, Mattias, De Liberato, Simone, Faist, Jerome and Scalari, Giacomo (2021) Polaritonic nonlocality in light-matter interaction. Nature Photonics, 690–695. (doi:10.1038/s41566-021-00854-3).

De Liberato, Simone and Wang, Yuan (2021) Theoretical proposals to measure resonator-induced modifications of the electronic ground-state in doped quantum wells. Physical Review A, 104 (2), [023109]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.104.023109).

De Liberato, Simone and Kavokin, Alexey (2021) Strong light-matter coupling in microcavities characterised by Rabi-splittings comparable to the Bragg stop-band widths. New Journal of Physics, 23 (11), [113015]. (doi:10.1088/1367-2630/ac3260). (In Press)

Gubbin, Christopher and De Liberato, Simone (2022) Polaritonic quantization in nonlocal polar materials. The Journal of Chemical Physics, 156 (2), 24111, [024111]. (doi:10.1063/5.0076234).

Gubbin, Christopher, De Liberato, Simone, Lu, Guanyu, Nolen, J. Ryan, Folland, Thomas, Diaz-Granados, Katja, Kravchenko, Ivan I., Spencer, Joseph, Tadjer, Marko J., Glembocki, Orest. J. and Caldwell, Joshua D. (2021) Collective phonon-polaritonic modes in silicon carbide subarrays. ACS Nano. (doi:10.1021/acsnano.1c08557).

Gubbin, Christopher R. and De Liberato, Simone (2022) Quantum theory of longitudinal-transverse polaritons in nonlocal thin films. Physical Review Applied, 17 (1), [014037]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevApplied.17.014037).

Gubbin, Christopher R., De Liberato, Simone and Folland, Thomas G. (2022) Surface phonon polaritons for infrared optoelectronics. Journal of Applied Physics, 131, [030901]. (doi:10.1063/5.0064234).

De Liberato, Simone, He, Mingze, Folland, Thomas G., Duan, Jiahua, Alonso-González, Pablo, Paarmann, Alexander and Caldwell, Joshua D. (2022) Anisotropy and modal hybridization in infrared nanophotonics using low-symmetry materials. ACS Photonics, 9 (4), 1078–1095. (doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.1c01486).

Lu, Guanyu, Gubbin, Christopher, Nolen, J. Ryan, Folland, Thomas Graeme, Tadjer, Marko J., De Liberato, Simone and Caldwell, Joshua D. (2021) Engineering the Spectral and Spatial Dispersion of Thermal Emission via Strong Coupling. Electronic Materials Conference (EMC). 23 - 25 Jun 2021. (doi:10.48448/w2xz-gw04).

Hu, Xin, Lo, Tsz Wing, Mancini, Andrea, Gubbin, Christopher, Martini, Francesco, Politi, Alberto, De Liberato, Simone, Zhang, Jian, Gong, Zhongmiao, Zhang, Xuefeng, Lei, Dangyuan and Maier, Stefan A. (2022) Near-field nano-spectroscopy of strong mode coupling in phonon-polaritonic crystals. Applied Physics Reviews, 9 (2). (doi:10.1063/5.0087489).

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Publications

Joshi, Chaitanya, Irish, Elinor K. and Spiller, Timothy P. (2017) Qubit-flip-induced cavity mode squeezing in the strong dispersive regime of the quantum Rabi model. Scientific Reports, 7, [45587]. (doi:10.1038/srep45587).

Larson, Jonas and Irish, Elinor (2017) Some remarks on 'superradiant' phase transitions in light-matter systems. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 50 (17), 1-22, [174002]. (doi:10.1088/1751-8121/aa65dc).

Shen, Lituo, Chen, Rongxin, Wu, Huaizhi, Yang, Zhenbiao, Irish, E.K. and Zheng, Shibiao (2017) Quantum phase transition of polaritonic excitations in a multi-excitation coupled array. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 56 (11), 3667-3689. (doi:10.1007/s10773-017-3532-2).

Levi, E. K., Irish, E. K. and Lovett, B. W. (2016) Coherent exciton dynamics in a dissipative environment maintained by an off-resonant vibrational mode. Physical Review A, 93 (4), 1-11, [042109]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.93.042109).

Rouxinol, F., Hao, Y., Brito, F., Caldeira, A. O., Irish, E. K. and Lahaye, M. D. (2016) Measurements of nanoresonator-qubit interactions in a hybrid quantum electromechanical system. Nanotechnology, 27 (36), [364003]. (doi:10.1088/0957-4484/27/36/364003).

Irish, E. K. and Gea-Banacloche, J. (2014) Oscillator tunneling dynamics in the Rabi model. Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 89 (8), 1-9, [085421]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.89.085421).

Irish, E. K., Gmez-Bombarelli, R. and Lovett, B. W. (2014) Vibration-assisted resonance in photosynthetic excitation-energy transfer. Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, 90 (1), 1-10, [012510]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.90.012510).

(2016) Coherent exciton dynamics in a dissipative environment maintained by an off-resonant vibrational mode. University of St Andrews doi:10.17630/7cccaae9-c920-469c-9dd7-33a4f00b2eef [Dataset]

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Published: 10 April 2019
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I'm a Scientist winner, Phil Wiseman

Supernova scientist Phil Wiseman explained how exploding stars can be used to measure the universe in a playful I'm a Scientist - Live! event for schoolchildren in Swindon.

The University of Southampton postdoctoral researcher was declared the winner ahead of five rival researchers, before pledging his winnings to an upcoming fancy dress challenge.

Phil will be running the Brighton Marathon next Sunday for the MS Society, inspired by his mum, Ann, who is living with multiple sclerosis.

With his fundraising total soaring, he will thank supporters by running the 26 miles dressed as the Muppets' Miss Piggy, wearing pink tights adorned with the faces of donors. He will also precede the run that weekend with a gruelling 66-mile bike ride from Southampton.

Phil was one of a dozen scientists with projects linked to or funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) who spoke to 300 secondary school pupils from five Swindon schools at the I'm a Scientist Live! event at The Ridgeway School and Sixth Form College last month.

"Anyone can be a scientist and I hope this event showed young people that following their curiosity can take them a long way in life," Phil says. "This was an exciting chance to showcase some of the mind-blowing things we know about our universe and break some of the scientific stereotypes that they might have been fed in the media and on television."

Phil's research in the School of Physics and Astronomy is working with data from the Dark Energy Survey, an international collaboration mapping hundreds of millions of galaxies and investigating the nature of mysterious dark energy.

"We have discovered thousands of supernovae - the explosions of dying stars - and are using them to make the most precise measurement ever of the rate of the universe's expansion," he explains. "This will help us try to understand the strange Dark Energy which makes up 70% of the 'stuff' in the universe."

Phil is also involved in a project which has recently discovered over 70 strange explosions that look like supernovae, but fade away very quickly.

Next weekend's charity challenge will be his first marathon and has been timed with his mum's 60th birthday.

"My amazing mum has been living with MS for many years now," he says. "While it can be a hindrance in every facet of life, mum, like so many other MS sufferers, enjoys life in the best way possible and serves as an inspiration for all of us."

You can sponsor Phil for his Miss Piggy marathon through his Virgin Money Giving page.

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Publications

Muskens, Otto, Ajia, Idris, Ou, Jun-Yu, Dinsdale, Nicholas Joseph, Singh, Haobijam, Chen-Sverre, Theo, Liu, Tongjun and Zheludev, Nikolai (2021) Dataset for: Gigahertz nano-optomechanical resonances in a dielectric SiC-membrane metasurface array. University of Southampton doi:10.5258/SOTON/D1812 [Dataset]

Ajia, Idris A., Ou, Jun-Yu, Singh, H. Johnson, Chen-Sverre, Theo, Liu, Tongjun, Zheludev, Nikolay I. and Muskens, Otto L. (2021) Gigahertz nano-optomechanical resonances in a dielectric SiC-membrane metasurface array. Nano Letters, 21 (11), 4563 - 4569. (doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c00205).

Muskens, Otto, Piper, Lewis, Kieran, Singh, Haobijam, Woods, Jonathan, Sun, Kai and Apostolopoulos, Vasileios (2021) Dataset for Mechanically tunable terahertz metamaterial perfect absorber. University of Southampton doi:10.5258/SOTON/D1888 [Dataset]

Piper, Lewis K., Singh, H. Johnson, Woods, Jonathan R. C., Sun, Kai, Muskens, Otto L. and Apostolopoulos, Vasilis (2021) Mechanically tunable terahertz metamaterial perfect absorber. Advanced Photonics Research, 2 (12), 2100136. (doi:10.1002/adpr.202100136).

Singh, Haobijam, Misatziou, Doxi, Wheeler, Callum, Buendia, Alvaro, Giannini, Vincenzo, Snchez-Gil, Jos A., Werts, Martinus H.V., Brown, Tom, El-Sagheer, Afaf H., Kanaras, Antonios and Muskens, Otto (2022) Dataset supporting the publication "Optical Mie scattering by DNA-assembled three-dimensional gold nanoparticle superlattice crystals". University of Southampton doi:10.5258/SOTON/D2368 [Dataset]

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Published: 22 March 2019
Illustration
: Young astrophysicists make scientific discoveries in the Space Zone.

Inquisitive minds discovered wonders of the universe as part of over 150 free activities in the University of Southampton's Science and Engineering Day.

The School of Physics and Astronomy was transformed into a Space Zone on Saturday as a festival atmosphere drew thousands of visitors to Highfield and Boldrewood campuses.

Families explored the universe in a mobile planetarium, built their own solar systems out of Play-Doh and learned the science behind the Large Hadron Collider in shows and workshops across the day.

Dr Sadie Jones, Space Zone Manager, says: "Our aim is to encourage more students to study physics at A-level and beyond, and we love sharing our knowledge, resources and skills with the public. The online tickets for space zone events sold out in record time this year and it was great to welcome over a thousand people through our doors on Saturday. I hope our activities have started to inspire some pioneering physicists and astronomers of the future."

The Soton Astrodome mobile planetarium provided one of the highlights of the Space Zone with videos introducing visitors to the world of astronomy and the aurora physics of the Northern Lights. The Aurora Borealis were also the focus of a new citizen science project, the Aurora Zoo, and a live Planeterella demonstration which simulated the phenomena.

Hands-on activities helped families make a range of scientific discoveries around the Space Zone. Children built Play-Doh planets to learn about our solar system, predicted climate change in a computer-modelling 'predict-a-planet' game and flew through the Extragalactic Large-Scale Universe in 3D with the Astera visualisation.

Visitors also learned about the science of photonics in performances of the Light Express Roadshow and were electrified by demonstrations from a Van der Graaf Generator, liquid nitrogen and levitating superconductors in the Accelerate! science show.

Details about future public and engagement and outreach activities in the School are available through the Physics and Astronomy website.

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Published: 20 March 2019
Illustration
Over 30 skaters from STEM careers took part in the exhibition game. Image credit: Striking Places Photography.

Female scientists and engineers from the University of Southampton put in an inspiring display when the worlds of career and roller derby collided at a STEMRoller event for British Science Week.

Over 70 secondary school pupils watched the exhibition game and took part in a speed networking session with the skaters who have roles in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Dr Sadie Jones, or 'Shady Supernova' from the School of Physics and Astronomy, Joy Richardson, or 'JoyStixx' from Human Factors Engineering, and Jessica Stead, or 'Knitphomaniac' from the National Oceanography Centre, battled as Southampton's 'roll' models at the event in High Wycombe.

Roller derby is a contact sport where teams of skaters support or thwart 'jammers' as they attempt to lap opposing teams. Joy and Jessica play for the Southampton City Rollers, while Sadie skates with the Portsmouth Roller Wenches.

"Roller derby is a one of the fastest growing female sports, there are actually a lot more teams for women than for men," Sadie says. "I love that I not only get to roller-skate competitively, but I get to play this full contact sport surrounded by loads of incredible, strong and positive women. It's also a very inclusive sport in which all shapes, sizes and ages can do very well.

"Female role models in STEM are not always as visible as their male peers but we are here. We are all strong women who are literally 'smashing it' in both our scientific careers and on the track playing roller derby."

Sadie is a key member of her School's Women's Physics Network and helped Physics and Astronomy secure an Athena SWAN Silver Award and Institute of Physics Juno Champion status for its commitment to tackling gender inequality.

The STEMRoller event was held at Wycombe Leisure Centre for a select audience of girls aged 14 to 19, with the post-match speed networking providing a chance to ask about potential career pathways.

Everyone playing and officiating in the contest was a woman working in STEM, with some having played at as high a level as the Roller Derby World Cup. Players came from a wide range of industries including video game programming, helicopter engineering, computational biology, palaeontology and astrophysics.

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