Our Research
Our research is focused on fundamental aspects of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale and new optical phenomena. Our extensive funding portfolio of major multi-million-£/€ grants has included three Programme Grants, a Portfolio, and Adventure and Basic Technology grants from the EPSRC and an ERC Advanced Grant.
Our achievements include foundational contributions to nanophotonics and metamaterials, artificial nanostructures with "optical properties on demand" such as
asymmetric transmission of light and
electromagnetically induced transparency; optical manifestations of
two-dimensional chirality;
Fano resonances and
sharp closed modes;
negative index due to chirality and
optical activity without chirality. The group pioneered reconfigurable
nano-opto-mechanical photonic media, with optical properties controlled by
temperature,
electric,
magnetic,
acoustic and
optical signals, through
nanomechanical actuation.
We coined the term "metadevice", meaning devices in which functionality is achieved by dedicated structuring of the material; and pioneered hybrid metamaterials with
superconductors,
carbon nanotubes,
graphene,
chalcogenides,
topological insulators, perovskites, and
liquid mercury microfluidics.
The group has studied control of
light-with-light in
coherent quantum metadevices. We were the first to recognize the potential of
phase-change phenomena for nanophotonics, in
nanoparticles and
metamaterials, and developed phase-change
reconfigurable photonic metadevices.
In plasmonics we coined the term "active plasmonics", to describe functionalities whereby propagating surface plasmons are controlled with light, and reported on
femtosecond switching of surface plasmons. We were the first to
generate surface plasmon-polaritons by free-electron impact, laid the foundations of the plasmonic metamaterial laser – the
"Lasing Spaser", and developed free-electron-driven, chip-scale
holographic,
"light well" and
metamaterial light sources.
We pioneered the field of toroidal electrodynamics, provided the first observation of the fundamental
electromagnetic toroidal moment, the
electromagnetic anapole and
toroidal light pulses, and predicted
toroidal transitions in atoms.
We were the first to observe the fundamental optical effect of superoscillation of light, which allows focusing of light into sub-diffraction hotspots. We have mapped the
topological and structural properties of superoscillatory light and developed
superoscillatory technologies for
imaging and
metrology. We developed ground-breaking techniques for
visualizing movements in reconfigurable matter with atomic scale resolution and have reported on the observation of
ballistic thermal motion in nanostructures.
Currently
We are working intensely on functional metamaterials, toroidal electrodynamics, optical metrology and imaging. We are spearheading the emerging discipline of Picophotonics - the science and technology of light at the atomic, picometer scale - where the Group has pioneering position, including the recent demonstration of atomic scale resolution optical metrology with topologically structured light, and the demonstration of the new dynamic state of matter, known as a continuous time crystal, which offers exiting new applications and playfield for the study of a new class of optical phenomena.