Optomechanical metrology: pushing optical sensing to its limit (2014–2021)
Abstract:
This Fellowship will pioneer technologies to observe and control the microscopic world with unprecedented precision, and apply them to realise practical sensors with unrivalled performance. Nano- and micro-scale sensors will be developed that resolve motion smaller than an atomic nucleus, in a classical spin-off from international efforts to study quantum physics at the nanoscale. Record precision will be achieved in thermometry and magnetometry. New tools will be developed for lab-on-a-chip medical diagnosis and thermal imaging that in future could allow femtolitre diagnosis of blood diseases such as malaria, on-chip genomic analysis, more efficient airport screening, and more precise satellite maps of global and atmospheric temperature.
