Hibberd holds an EPSRC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship at Manchester's PSI. Research directions: (1) Ultrafast THz spectroscopy of magnetic materials — probing spin dynamics, magnon modes, and phase transitions in correlated magnetic materials with sub-ps time resolution using intense THz pulses; (2) THz-driven spintronics — using THz electric and magnetic fields to switch magnetization and induce spin currents; (3) THz generation from spintronic heterostructures — using ultrafast spin-charge conversion as a broadband THz emitter for materials characterization; (4) Quantum magnonics — studying collective spin excitations (magnons) as quantum sensors of materials order parameters. Bridges ultrafast optics and quantum sensing of magnetic phases.
Hutchison works on molecular polaritonics: what happens to chemistry when molecular electronic or vibrational transitions are strongly coupled to a confined optical mode in a Fabry-Perot or plasmonic nanocavity. He was among the first to show that vibrational strong coupling modifies ground-state chemical reactivity, and the group continues to probe polariton-modified energy transfer, photochemistry and transport, alongside single-molecule spectroscopy and 2D-material photonics. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the connection to quantum sensing is the cavity: the same Purcell and collective-coupling physics that concentrates optical density of states around a molecule is what is used to improve photon collection and readout fidelity in NV ensembles operating at pT/sqrt(Hz). This is fundamental light-matter physics with a clear nonclassical-state angle.
Studies molecular and nano-optics, plasmonics, and near-field light-matter interactions, using super-resolution optical imaging to reveal active sites and phase transformations in heterogeneous catalysis and single nanodomains.
Kassal is the leading Australian theorist of quantum effects in light harvesting. He established the distinction between coherent processes and coherent states in photosynthesis — showing that under incoherent sunlight at steady state, wavelike motion per se does not enhance efficiency, while environment-assisted transport and supertransfer genuinely can — and has since developed a classification of the mechanisms by which coherence (excitonic, vibrational, or of the light field itself) can improve energy transport. He also pioneered quantum-computer algorithms for chemistry. A distinct and directly relevant thread is the theory of spectroscopy with non-classical light: what entangled or squeezed photons can reveal about molecular coherence that classical light cannot. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — his work is the theoretical counterpart to the quantum-biology ambitions of the NV community: where NV ensembles at pT/sqrt(Hz) try to detect the magnetic signatures of biological spin chemistry, Kassal asks what quantum coherence is actually doing in those systems and whether quantum light can interrogate it.
King develops polarization- and time-resolved PEEM together with ultrafast (scanning) transmission electron microscopy to image charge-carrier, exciton, and phonon dynamics with nanoscale (down to ~25 nm) spatial resolution at buried interfaces and in 2D materials such as black phosphorus. Her group is now retrofitting a high-throughput PEEM, in collaboration with the Kasthuri lab, for whole-brain connectomics -- an unpreferred/borderline inclusion since the core program is materials-science imaging rather than biosensing, but one that is directly extending resolution-pushing microscopy into neuroscience.
Lakhwani runs the Molecular Photophysics Group and is a chief investigator in ARC Exciton Science. The group works on strong light-matter coupling in organic semiconductors: forming exciton-polaritons in microcavities, driving them toward polariton lasing and condensation with electrically injected devices, and engineering host-guest energy funnelling to lower thresholds. A second thread is chiroptical spectroscopy — circular dichroism and circularly polarised luminescence of chiral organic films — which is a polarisation-resolved measurement of a very small differential signal. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — polaritonic quantum matter is a distinct route to non-classical states of light at room temperature, in contrast to the cryogenic or spin-based platforms that dominate pT/sqrt(Hz)-class sensing; the differential chiroptical measurements the group performs are, methodologically, small-signal detection problems of exactly the same type.
Develops single-molecule spectroscopy and imaging/signal-processing methods to study protein dynamics at interfaces and predictive separations.
Leone's group generates attosecond and few-femtosecond XUV/X-ray pulses to track electron dynamics and charge migration in molecules and materials in real time, pushing time-domain spectroscopy toward the natural timescale of electronic motion.
Develops mass spectrometry-based imaging and proteomics technologies, including integration of tissue expansion microscopy with mass spectrometry imaging to achieve higher spatial resolution molecular maps of tissues such as tumors and brain.
Studies photophysics and photochemistry of plasmonic nanomaterials using single-particle optical imaging and ultrafast spectroscopy, with applications to solar energy conversion.