The Braggs featured in Arch Daily

The Braggs, the new headquarters of IPAS has been featured in Arch Daily, please follow the link.

http://www.archdaily.com/362650/the-braggs-bvn-architecture/

New Ultrasonic Mill Installed at IPAS

Funded under the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF), IPAS took delivery of our new DMG Ultrasonic 20 linear, 5-axis milling machine. Once commissioned this will allow machining of glass, ceramics and complex metal objects. The mill is located on the ground floor of The Braggs building. Please contact Mr Luis Lima-Marques about access to this machine.

What wiped out the megafauna?

IPAS Researcher Adjunct Professor Nigel Spooner is working as part of a South Australian team to answer one of the big questions in Australian science ‘What wiped out the megafauna?’. The Australian megafauna are a number of large animal species in Australia, often defined as species with body mass estimates of greater than 45 kilograms that are widely believed to have become extinct approximately 40 – 50,000 years ago.

Nigel  is providing optical dating of quartz grains found in the sediment surrounding recently discovered fossils. This work is being done by the Environmental Luminescence team of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing at the University of Adelaide. The dating of this sediment will provide critical information to the team as to when the Diprotodon in this study died.

The work has been covered by ABC’s Catalyst program and a video of this amazing work can be viewed at http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3699312.htm

The Braggs – New Headquarters for IPAS – Now Open for Business!

The Braggs building is now operational with staff and students enjoying the brand new facilities. Come and pay us a visit! IPAS reception is located on Level 1. Stop past Aroma cafe located in the atrium for a coffee and view upcoming events, seminars and media articles on one of the display screens around the building.

Welcome – Precision Measurement Group

The Precision Measurement group have joined IPAS from The University of Western Australia. In early 2013, IPAS welcomed Professor Andre Luiten to Adelaide. A joint inaugural winner of the WA Premier’s Prize for Early Career Achievement in Science, Professor Luiten was also awarded the 1996 Bragg Gold Medal for Physics. His relocation from Western Australia to take up the Chair of Experimental Physics has been made possible thanks to a $1M South Australian Research Fellowship.
We are thrilled with Andre’s appointment, as his focus on driving the limits of measurement forward aligns strongly with IPAS’s Vision to create sensing technologies that will transform our capacity to answer pressing problems across research and industry.
His appointment includes teaching at the University, where his passion and excitement for physics will surely serve to inspire and motivate the next generation of undergraduate scientists.
His role directly reflects our unique State position of having a nexus between world-leading research and learning and teaching. Professor Luiten’s high-calibre research team relocated to Adelaide early March to help establish a suite of world-leading facilities for precision measurement. Based in the University’s School of Chemistry and Physics, Professor Luiten and his team are conducting research within IPAS, strengthening Adelaide’s reputation as a world leader in optics and photonics research.
The team have developed a range of state-of-the-art laser instruments and measurement techniques to extract maximal information from a spectroscopic measurement. Their light sources are some of the best controlled and spectrally pure that has ever been developed, which has allowed some of the most accurate and precise measurements ever performed. These techniques can be applied to important measurements in fields such as medicine, radar and environmental monitoring, and are critical to future scientific discovery. The group has recently developed the ability to send high quality signals to remote locations using optical fibres, which could soon open new avenues in distributed radioastronomy and radar.
Andre is co-leading the IPAS Novel Light Sources research theme with Associate Professor David Lancaster.

Super Science Australian Roadshow

Over the last week, five early career researchers from the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing have been visiting research groups around Australia. Sabrina Heng, Georgios Tsiminis, Kristopher Rowland, Linh Nguyen, and Stephen Warren-Smith have been presenting their optical fibre sensing research work to related groups, with the aim to develop new collaborations, promote research at IPAS, develop networks and gain an understanding of optical, nanoscience and other research in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, and Brisbane.
Their journey has taken them to Swinburne University, Monash University, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, the National Measurement Institute, the Queensland University of Technology, and the University of Queensland.

First Piece of Major IPAS Equipment installed in The Braggs

Today marked a milestone in our move into The Braggs the new Headquarters of IPAS.

Yesterday our high temperature extrusion rig was disassembled ready to move it to its new home in The Braggs.

 

Today it was successfully manoeuvred into its new lab.

Congratulations to the team from IPAS, Samaras and Balderstone in achieving this milestone.