News

Mariam Abdullah, an MPhil student, and Stephen Li, a PhD student, jointly received the 2023 IEEE Communications Society Student Competition Honorary Mention for their outstanding submission on "Realizing Advanced Wireless Terahertz Communications through Intelligent Direction of Arrival Estimation." This innovative machine-learning-based approach, coupled with an advanced 3D-printed antenna, accurately determines direction of arrival without scanning mechanisms. 

Our group has received an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant to support a collaborative project "Leaky Dielectric Platform for Integrated Terahertz Components" during 2024–2026. The grant will enable us to pursue our proprietary substrateless integrated platform for various terahertz components. These components are crucial in emerging terahertz integration for field applications and will transcend decades-old bulky free-space terahertz counterparts. The work is to be conducted with our alumnus Dr. Daniel Headland at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. The outcomes will contribute towards high-speed 6G infrastructure and high-resolution stand-off sensing to reap economic benefits at the dawn of terahertz engineering.

Our undergraduate students have achieved a remarkable milestone at the Ingenuity 2023 event. Held at the Adelaide Convention Centre, this event showcased the outstanding projects undertaken by coursework students throughout the year. We are proud to highlight the outstanding achievement of two exceptional students, Elijah Schutz (left) and Fraser Macphee (right), from our group. They have been honoured with the 1st Prize in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Project category for their remarkable research on "Could Terahertz have saved OceanGate's Titan?"

Two of our esteemed lab members have been honoured with the prestigious IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Fellowship for the year 2023. In the category of postdoctoral researchers is Dr. Xiaolong You (left), and in the category of PhD students is Stephen Li (right). This recognition is a testament to their outstanding contributions and dedication to the field of antennas and propagation.

For more details: https://ieeeaps.org/awards/ieee-antennas-and-propagation-society-fellowship-program-awards-2023

Dr. Weijie Gao was awarded the Gertrude Rohan Memorial Prize for the best PhD thesis in the area of information and communications technology. This is on top of his Doctoral Research Medal from the University of Adelaide. 

Dr. Weijie Gao has been awarded a Doctoral Research Medal from the University of Adelaide for his PhD thesis entitled "Effective-Medium-Clad Dielectric Components Towards Terahertz Integrated Platform". The recognition is reserved for high-calibre theses, and only 15 Medals were conferred in 2022. He was a founding member in our lab from 2018-2021, and now works as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Nagatsuma's Laboratory at Osaka University.

Our PhD student, Linxi Chen, has received a Best Student Paper Award at the  5th Australian Microwave Symposium (AMS) in Melbourne during March 16-17, 2023. Her contribution was on "Compact broadband terahertz filter based on effective medium."

Our Terahertz Engineering Laboratory has received funding from the Australia-Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme to collaborate with Prof. Jan Balzer and Prof. Niels Benson at the University Duisburg-Essen on "3D-printed monolithic platform towards advanced terahertz components and applications". The project draws together cutting-edge expertise from our team and German partners on terahertz integration (AU), 3D printing of low-loss ceramics (DE), communications (AU), and sensing (DE). This platform and the associated components will serve to advance terahertz technology in broad areas, from sensing to communications. The project will see exchange visits of academics and PhD students in 2023-2024 to collaborate in this space.

Our PhD candidate Harrison Lees presented his research at the Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference, 'In The Wine Light' Student Forum, a 'Three-Minute Thesis' style event oriented around short technical presentations from early career researchers. For his presentation entitled 'In-container evaluation of ethanol content with terahertz technology' he was awarded both the People's Choice and Judge's Choice Awards, sponsored by Wine Australia and The Australian Society of Viticulture & Oenology (ASVO).

Our second-year PhD candidate, Harrison Lees, has received the IEEE MTT Graduate Fellowship in this 2022 round. The Fellowship is to recognise 12 high-calibre PhD candidates worldwide in the broad area of microwave theory and technology. Harry is a highly motivated student working on terahertz silicon platform and non-destructive evaluation. He has mentored a number of undergraduate students and aided his fellow PhD students in the Terahertz Engineering Laboratory. 

Weijie Gao has been awarded a doctoral degree recently from the University of Adelaide. As a PhD candidate, he was a founding member of our Terahertz Engineering Laboratory since 2018. During 2020-2021, he shifted to remote candidature due to travel restrictions that affected all of us worldwide. Due to his resilience and persistence, his thesis "Effective-Medium-Clad Dielectric Components Towards Terahertz Integrated Platform" has passed with flying colours and been awarded a Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence. He is now a postdoctoral researcher with Nagatsuma's group in Osaka University.

Our group has received an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant to support a collaborative project "Empowering Terahertz Sources with Silicon Antennas" during 2022–2024. The grant will enable us to pursue unconventional antennas to enhance the performance and functionality of terahertz sources and detectors. This project is a joint venture with Suzuki's Laboratory at Tokyo Institute of Technology, world-renowned in resonant tunnelling diodes as fundamental oscillators at terahertz frequencies. The outcomes will support future terahertz systems in fixed wireless backbone beyond 5G and short-range see-through radar and imaging.

Our project 'Sharing Advances in Next-Generation Telecommunications Technologies for Technological Sovereignty' is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Japan Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Over 2022–2023, the project aims at bilateral exchanges of postgraduates and researchers between the University of Adelaide, RMIT University, Osaka University, and Kyushu University. These four universities have complementary and critical capabilities to drive next-generation (6G) telecommunications technologies planned to support ever increasing data traffic by 2030. The exchanges will allow us to share latest advances in this common area among the participants via laboratory visits and training. The project will promote our innovation, science, and education and people-to-people links for greater collaborations in next-generation telecommunications for technological sovereignty of Australia and Japan.

Harrison Lees joined our laboratory since 2018 during his undergraduate study. His research activities focused on spectroscopy and integrated terahertz systems. From the beginning of this year, he has started his PhD journey in our laboratory. On this occasion, his honours project is recognised by the Surveillance Systems Undergraduate Prize from the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG). He is our second student who received this prestigious award after Jorge Fernandez in 2020.

In the photo: Harrison Lees, Dr Luke Rosenburg (DSTG), and Prof. Nelson Tansu (Head of School)

Two of our metasurface papers published in 2020 have been selected for the Future Luminary Award Finalists by the APL Photonics. One paper led by Xiaolong You proposed a design of broadband quarter-wave plate with a fractional bandwidth above 50%, well beyond what conventional waveplates can perform. The other paper led by Dr. Rajour Ako presented a linear polarisation converter with a fractional bandwidth of 133% that outperformed other devices of the same function. Both terahertz metasurfaces have exceptional efficiency, owing to the supporting low-loss cyclic-olefin copolymer (COC).

APL Photonics focuses on fundamental and applied photonics with its current Clarivate impact factor of 4.864. More about the 2020 Future Luminary Award here. 

Our collaboration with Osaka University has resulted in a new multiplexer made from pure silicon for terahertz-range communications in the 300-GHz band.  This tiny silicon multiplexer makes it possible to combine/divide different terahertz channels for ultra-high speed digital transmission. Our alumnus, Dr Daniel Headland, is lead author of this study. More details can be found in this Adelaide press release & the research article published in Optica. 

Optica is a flagship journal title published by the Optical Society (OSA). Its 2019 Clarivate impact factor is 9.778.

Our Laboratory has participated in a live stream for introducing the Faculty of Engineering, Computer & Mathematical Sciences to potential Chinese students. The event provided them comprehensive information on our academic capabilities, research institutions, and future engagement. During the virtual visit to the Terahertz Engineering Laboratory, many audiences showed great interests especially on the beyond-5G research capabilities and express their interests to participate the lab activities in the future.

Our PhD student, Mohamed Shehata, is awarded a SmartSAT Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) scholarship. The scholarship will support an investigation into the opportunities and challenges of applying terahertz technologies to satellite communications. The project is in collaboration with Keysight Technologies Australia.

Dr. Amrutha Gopal from Helmholtz Institute Jena delivered an invited talk on October 16 to our group. She is a senior researcher working on high-power terahertz sources. Her talk covered high-power terahertz generation, detection, and applications.

Our collaboration with the neighbouring School of Agriculture, Food and Wine demonstrated a potential of terahertz imaging for screening frost damage in barley. A news coverage can be found on Phys.org.

Field photo at Loxton provided by Dr. Ariel Ferrante

Prof. Dr.-Ing Jan C. Balzer delivered an invited talk to our group on September 4. He leads the terahertz group at Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany. His talk was 'Imaging and material identification in the terahertz domain'.

We had an opportunity to attend an invited talk delivered by A/Prof. Jessica Afalla from University of Tsukuba, Japan on August 28.  Her research focuses on semiconductors for terahertz photoconductive antennas, in collaboration with University of Fukui and University of the Philippines Diliman National Institute of Physics.

On June 26, Dr. Yang, a Senior Lecturer from the School of Electrical and Data Engineering at UTS, presented a talk on millimetre-wave and terahertz metalenses. His research interests cover a broad range of RF devices from microwave, millimetre-wave, to terahertz frequencies.

On May 15, we were fortunate to have the second online seminar delivered by A/Prof. Helena Rodilla from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. Prof. Rodilla presented an overview on her research activities in study of protein dynamics, terahertz sensing in pharmaceutical applications, and lab-on-a-chip.

Jorge Fernandez was an undergraduate student working in our laboratory during 2018-2019. Upon his graduation, he has been awarded the DSTG Surveillance Systems Undergraduate Prize in recognition of his outstanding academic performance and his honours project on radar cross section (RCS) measurement in the terahertz band.

In the current pandemic situation, most of us practice social distancing with discussions taking place online. We take this opportunity to start a series of invited talks to be delivered by early- and mid-career researchers from interstate and overseas. Our inaugural seminar was delivered by Dr. Xiongbin Yu from Tokyo Institute of Technology on April 17 via Zoom. Recently graduating from Osaka University, Dr. Yu shared with us his PhD research on terahertz resonant tunnelling diodes interfacing with photonic crystal waveguides for communications applications.

Our group proposed an all-silicon waveguide platform based on effective medium theory. Without metals or additional dielectrics, the efficiency of this waveguide is exceptional across a wide band. Owing to its low dispersion, the waveguide can support error-free data transmission at least 30 Gbit/s at 335 GHz. In collaboration with Osaka University, we demonstrated transmission of uncompressed 4K-resolution video across this waveguide. For more information: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.382181 

On June 19, Dr. Hungyen Lin from Lancaster University, UK, has given a talk titled "Accelerating Industrial Adoption of Terahertz Sensing". The talk was sponsored by the IEEE South Australia Joint Chapter on Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) & Antennas and Propagation (AP).

In June, a Keysight engineer Timothy Lee installed a system that is an enabler for terahertz communications. This was followed by a trainning given to our lab members.

In April, our publication on metasurface by Dr. Wendy Lee in collaboration with RMIT University has been selected among the Best of Advanced Optical Materials 2018. The Journal covers a broad range of optics with its latest impact factor of 7.43. 

A/Prof. Masayuki Fujita from Osaka University visited our Laboratory for one week in late April for research collaboration. He is a partner investigator in one of our ARC Discovery Projects. In this occasion, he delivered a technical seminar sponsored by IEEE SA AP/MTT.

On January 25, 2019, the group hosted an IEEE sponsored seminar by Dr. Daniel Headland. The presentation was on our collaborative work on terahertz Luneburg lenses. Dr. Headland is our past member now working as a postdoctoral researcher in Osaka University, Toyonaka Campus.

During December 2018, our PhD student Weijie Gao has visited Osaka University for collaborative projects with Nagatsuma's Laboratory. 

On the 7th of December 2018, our group hosted the 6th Australian Terahertz Workshop for academics to share their latest research findings on terahertz science and technology. On the same day, the attendees had a chance to visit the Terahertz Engineering Laboratory. The 6th Workshop was another successful event that attracted over 40 attendees from 11 institutes across Australia.

https://sites.google.com/view/atw2018/home 

On the 29th of November 2018, our group hosted an IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) Distinguished Lecture delivered by Prof. Tadao Nagatsuma, Osaka University. The lecture was "Millimeter-wave and Terahertz Applications Enabled by Photonics".