The University of Southampton
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Physics and Astronomy

Telephone:
+442380592076
Email:
a.obannon@soton.ac.uk

 

2019-20 Head of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee for Physics and Astronomy

Work history

2015-present: Royal Society University Research Fellow and Senior Researcher, STAG Research Centre, University of Southampton

2013-15: Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Oxford

2010-13: Research Associate (postdoc), DAMTP, University of Cambridge

2008-10: Research Fellow (postdoc), Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich

2002-08: M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics, University of Washington, Seattle. Advisor: Prof. Andreas Karch.

2002-07: Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholar (full funding for graduate studies)

1998-2002: B.A. in Physics and the Writing Seminars, the Johns Hopkins University

Qualifications

BA Physics and the Writing Seminars, Johns Hopkins University (1998-2002)

PhD, University of Washington, Seattle (2002-2008, Advisor: Prof. Andreas Karch)

Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich, Germany (2008-10)

Research Associate, DAMTP, University of Cambridge (2010-13)

Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Oxford (2013-15) and University of Southampton (2015-present)

Research

Research interests

My research is focused on strongly-interacting systems with unusual transport properties. An example from particle physics is the quark-gluon plasma, the hot soup of quarks an gluons that existed micro-seconds after the Big Bang, and is reproduced. The quark-gluon plasma has a shear viscosity lower than any other known fluid. An example from condensed matter physics are the ``strange metal’’ states of heavy fermion compounds and high-temperature superconductors. These materials have an electrical resistivity scaling as the square of temperature, unlike the linear scaling of most metals. Few reliable techniques exist to study such systems. As a result, the origins of their unusual properties remain mysterious.

To study such systems, I use a novel technique, discovered in string theory, called holography. Holography is the statement that certain strongly-interacting systems are equivalent, in a precise mathematical sense, to Einstein’s theory of gravity in one higher dimension. In other words, by calculating things in Einstein’s theory of gravity, we can learn about the quark-gluon plasma, strange metals, and more!

To be clear, the systems involved in holography are purely theoretical, and do not describe any particular real system. However, they have the potential to reveal general principles applicable to real systems. In other words, holography provides “toy models” that may reveal patterns characteristic of strongly-interacting systems. Indeed, holography already has a success story: all fluids described by holography have the same ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density, of roughly 0.1. That value is shockingly close to the value estimated for the quark-gluon plasma, which is also roughly 0.1. Holography thus revealed a general principle: a ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density of roughly 0.1 is characteristic of strongly-interacting fluids.

The goal of my research is to find similar ``universal’’ properties. Indeed, with various collaborators I have discovered substantial evidence for generic, if not completely universal, properties of the electrical resistivity, impurity physics, entanglement, and more in many holographic systems. Above all, I have learned that holography and string theory have much to teach us about strongly-interacting systems!

Teaching

2016-20 Module Coordinator for Final Year Synoptic Physics PHYS3017 and PHYS6015

2021 Module Coordinator for Linear Algebra for Physics PHYS1203

Publications

Jensen, Kristan and O'Bannon, Andy (2016) Constraint on defect and boundary renormalization group flows. Physical Review Letters, 116 (9), 1-5, [091601]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.091601).

Estes, John, Jensen, Kristan, O'Bannon, Andy, Tsatis, Efstratios and Wrase, Timm (2014) On holographic defect entropy. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2014 (84), 1-47. (doi:10.1007/JHEP05(2014)084).

Erdmenger, Johanna, Hoyos, Carlos, O'Bannon, Andrew, Papadimitriou, Ioannis, Probst, Jonas and Wu, Jackson (2017) Two-Point Functions in a Holographic Kondo Model. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2017 (3), [39]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP03(2017)039).

O'bannon, Andrew, Probst, Jonas and Papadimitriou, Ioannis (2016) A holographic two-impurity kondo model. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2016 (103), [103]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP01(2016)103).

Erdmenger, Johanna, Flory, Mario, Hoyos, Carlos, Newrzella, Max-Niklas, O'Bannon, Andrew and Wu, Jackson M.S. (2016) Holographic impurities and Kondo effect. Fortschritte der Physik, 64 (4-5), 322-329. (doi:10.1002/prop.201500079).

Erdmenger, Johanna, Hoyos, Carlos, O'Bannon, Andrew, Papadimitriou, Ioannis, Probst, Jonas and Wu, Jackson M.S. (2017) Holographic Kondo and Fano resonances. Physical Review D, 96 (2), [021901]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.96.021901).

O'Bannon, Andrew, Probst, Jonas, Rodgers, Ronald, James and Uhlemann, Christoph F. (2017) A first law of entanglement rates from holography. Physical Review D, 96, [066028]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.96.066028).

Gushterov, Nikola I., O'Bannon, Andrew and Rodgers, Ronald (2017) On holographic entanglement density. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2017 (10), [137]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP10(2017)137).

Gushterov, Nikola I., O’Bannon, Andy and Rodgers, Ronnie (2018) Holographic zero sound from spacetime-filling branes. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2018 (10), [76]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP10(2018)076).

Jensen, Kristan, O'Bannon, Andrew, Robinson, Brandon and Rodgers, Ronald, James (2019) From the Weyl anomaly to entropy of two-dimensional boundaries and defects. Physical Review Letters, 122, [241602]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.241602).

Estes, John, Krym, Darya, O'Bannon, Andrew, Robinson, Brandon and Rodgers, Ronnie (2019) Wilson surface central charge from holographic entanglement entropy. The Journal of High Energy Physics, 2019 (32), 1-52. (doi:10.1007/JHEP05(2019)032).

Evans, Nicholas, O'bannon, Andrew and Rodgers, Ronald, James (2020) Holographic Wilson lines as screened impurities. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2020 (3), [188]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP03(2020)188).

O'bannon, Andrew, Robinson, Brandon J, Chalabi, Adam and Sisti, Jacopo (2020) Central charges of 2d superconformal defects. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2020 (5), [95]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP05(2020)095).

Kumar, Prem, O'bannon, Andrew, Pribytok, Anton and Rodgers, Ronald (2021) Holographic coulomb branch solitons, quasinormal modes, and black holes. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2021 (05), [109]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP05(2021)109).

Fadafan, Kazem Bitaghsir, O'bannon, Andrew, Rodgers, Ronald and Russell, Matthew, James (2021) A Weyl semimetal from AdS/CFT with flavour. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2021 (4), [162]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP04(2021)162).

O'bannon, Andrew, Kumar, Prem, Rodgers, Ronald, Pribytok, Anton, Chalabi, Adam and Sisti, Jacopo (2021) Holographic entanglement entropy of the Coulomb branch. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2021 (4), [153]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP04(2021)153).

Andrei, N., Bissi, A., Buican, Matthew, O'bannon, Andrew and Robinson, Brandon J (2020) Boundary and defect CFT: open problems and applications. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 53 (45), [453002]. (doi:10.1088/1751-8121/abb0fe).

Hanada, Masanori, Holden, Jack, Knaggs, Matthew and O'bannon, Andrew (2022) Global symmetries and partial confinement. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2022 (3), [118]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP03(2022)118).

Chalabi, Adam, Herzog, Christopher P., Robinson, Brandon, Sisti, Jacopo and O'bannon, Andrew (2022) Weyl anomalies of four dimensional conformal boundaries and defects. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2022 (2), [166]. (doi:10.1007/JHEP02(2022)166).

Contact

Telephone: +44 (0) 23 8059 2076

Email: a.obannon@soton.ac.uk

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Telephone:
+442380593922
Email:
sadie.jones@soton.ac.uk

 

Sadie started work at the University of Southampton as the Outreach Leader in Astronomy in June 2011. Ths role involves co-ordination and management of all the astronomy outreach and public engagement activities from the Physics and Astronomy department. A large part of this role involves managing a team of undergraduate and PhD students who work with the astrodome aka #OurGreatestTeam. Sadie also organises Stargazing live events on campus, the SETI Cipher Challenge in July, Astrodome events in the local community and acts as a media correspondent on all things space related.

Sadie graduated with a PhD in Radio Astronomy from the University of Southampton in July 2012. Her research was an investigation of the radio emission from an active supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy NGC 4051. She used this data to determine if galaxy had a jet. 

Before coming to Southampton to do her PhD Sadie completed an MPhys in Astrophysics at Cardiff University. During her undergraduate studies she first discovered her love for all things outreach. This love was inspired primarily by working with the Faulkes Telescope team for her BSc and Masters projects and then from working at camps in America during the summers and doing weekend work in the planetarium at the local science discovery centre, Techniquest.

Publications

Carey, Max, Elcock, D., Saywell, J., Jones, S., Belal, M. and Freegarde, T. (2017) Velocimetry, cooling and rotation sensing by cold-atom matterwave interferometry. In Proceedings Quantum Information and Measurement (QIM) 2017: 5–7 April 2017, Paris, France. OSA. 3 pp . (In Press) (doi:10.1364/QIM.2017.QT5C.2).

Jones, S., Mchardy, I. and Maccarone, T.J. (2017) A comprehensive long term study of the radio and X-ray Variability of NGC 4051 Paper II. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 465 (2), 1336-1347. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2810).

Contact

Telephone: +44 (0) 23 8059 3922

Email: sadie.jones@soton.ac.uk

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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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2019 Open Days

Research

Research interests

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

Teaching

PHYS6012 Coherent Light, Coherent Matter

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).

Contact

Telephone: +44 (0) 23 8059 7468709617

Email: S.De-Liberato@soton.ac.uk

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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]

Contact

Telephone: +44 (0) 23 8059 3812

Email: e.irish@soton.ac.uk

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Published: 10 April 2019
Illustration
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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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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