Detectors have long been a limiting factor in electron microscopy experiments, but we’ve now entered an exciting phase with new detector technology coming into play. In recent years one of the most dramatic advances in structural biology has been in the deployment of backthinned CMOS direct detectors to attain near-atomic resolution molecular structures with electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM). Here we...

This talk will present a variety of examples of such behaviours, such as single electron effects, metal-insulator transitions, semiconductor transistor-like conductance gating, enhanced Andreev reflections at superconducting interfaces and, most recently, strongly correlated electronic behaviour. The latter is particularly exciting since strongly correlated electrons are known to lie at the heart of some of the most exotic, widely studied...

Nano-optomechanical devices enhance the interaction between light and nanomechanical resonators, enabling coherent coupling between photons and mesoscopic phonons. When spin systems are attached to or embedded within these devices, technologies for nanoscale sensing, and for transducing quantum information between photons, phonons and spins become viable. In this talk I will illustrate this potential by presenting measurements of the susceptibility...

Design of multiresponsive smart, soft materials is at the onset of many developments in polymer physics, chemical physics, biophysics and biochemistry research. A system is known as smart responsive when a slight change in external stimuli can drastically alter its structure, function and stability. Because the relevant energy scale in these systems is of the order of thermal energy...