Many of us are familiar with the SUPA video conferencing (VC) rooms in each of our institutions. They are used predominantly to provide the Graduate School courses for SUPA students, but also provide a useful meeting resource for research activities in the less busy times between semesters.
A new feature of the 2016 Gathering was a Student Poster Prize Competition. Each of the eight SUPA partner universities nominated a student to present a poster. The prize, sponsored by Kaiam Corporation (Livingston), was judged by a panel comprising three members of the SUPA International Advisory Committee, Professors Ruth Gregory (U.Durham), Anneila Sargent (CalTech) and Malcom Longair (U.Cambridge). All posters presented were of very high quality and the panel were challenged to choose a winner.
A research group (Applied Optics and Photonics) led by Professor Duncan Hand at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh has developed a laser-based process for the generation of phase holographic structures directly onto the surface of metal and glass substrates. The holograms are generated by either only melting or a combination of melting and evaporation, with sub-micron depth control of the hologram individual features (called pixels).
Members of the Institute for Gravitational Research (IGR) and the School on Engineering have published an article in Nature titled: “Measurement of the Earth Tides with a MEMS Gravimeter”. The Earth tides are the elastic deformation of the Earth caused by the changing phase of the Sun and the Moon, and the Glasgow microelectromechanical system – or MEMS - is the first such device to measure this phenomenon (see figure 1).
In 2014, Photonics21 published a “multiannual strategic roadmap”, setting out a strategy for European photonics to solve the grand societal challenges and to generate sustainable economic growth in Europe. On a practical level, this document outlined priorities for Horizon2020 funding calls between 2014 and 2020. Photonics21 has continued to refine and update this priorities and propose call topics to the European Commission since then.
The Ultra-low vibration (ULV) labs in St Andrews are the most advanced of its kind in the UK and one of just a handful worldwide. The facility achieves vibration levels which are about two order of magnitude better than the best industry standard. They will allow for atomic scale characterization of the electronic states and magnetic structure in quantum materials. Since opening of the facility in May last year, three bespoke scanning tunnelling microscopes, which were developed by the research group of Dr Wahl, have been installed.
Dr Francisco J Perez Reche, of the Institute for Complex Systems and Mathematical Biology has recently published work in nature.com on models inspired by statistical physics to explain explosive social contagion (why things go viral) which has been enthusiastically picked up by the media following the University of Aberdeen’s press release: (
The European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder mission has demonstrated the technology needed to build a space-based gravitational wave observatory.