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Organic functional materials development (design, synthesis & characterisation) for quantum based optoelectronics

Associate Professor Shih-Chun Lo (Lawrence)

Lawrence held a prestigious Swire Scholarship while carrying out his PhD study on semiconductor material development for organic solar cells and light emitting diodes (LEDs) at Oxford University, UK (1996-2000). His post-doctoral research at Oxford University focused on the design, synthesis and characterisation of fluorescent and phosphorescent dendrimers for highly efficient LEDs. Dendrimers have been recognised internationally as the third main class of LED materials, alongside small molecules and polymers, in which he played a key role. In December 2007, he joined the University of Queensland as a Lecturer in Chemistry of Materials. His research work has focused on the development of new functional semiconductor materials for quantum based optoelectronic applications (e.g. solar cells, LEDs, photodetectors, sensors, superconductors & organic lasers) as well as clean energy generation.

Dr. Andrew Groszek completed his PhD in theoretical physics at Monash University in 2018, under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Tapio Simula. His doctoral research involved the numerical simulation of non-equilibrium superfluids, with a particular interest in vortices and turbulence in these systems.

From 2018-2020, he worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the group of Dr. Thomas Billam at Newcastle University, United Kingdom. Here he continued his research on far-from-equilibrium systems, with a focus on superfluids away from the zero temperature limit.

In 2020, he joined the group of Prof. Matthew Davis at the University of Queensland, and is currently based in the ARC Centres of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS) and Future Low-Energy Electronics Technology (FLEET). He is currently investigating periodically driven quantum systems, as well as providing numerical modelling for the Bose-Einstein condensate experiments located on campus.

Veronika Kuchta received her Diploma degree in Mathematics at the Heidelberg University in Germany in 2010. She reseived her PhD in applied cryptography at the University of Surrey, United Kingdom in 2016. She worked as a postdoc at the Universite libre de Bruxelles in Belgium from 2016-2018. From 2018 till 2020 she has been a Research Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. FromDecember 2020 to July 2022 she was employed by The University of Queensland, School of Mathematics and Physics as a lecturer in mathematical cryptography. From November 2022 she is Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, USA), department of mathematical sciences. Her research interst focus on the different areas of mathematical cryptography, post-quantum cryptography and its applications to the real-world.

Yi-Hsun Chen completed his PhD in Physics at the Monash University in 2024. Prior to this PhD, he obtained his Master degree in Optoelectronics at the National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, in 2014.

His research interests relate to electronic transport and optical properties of the following field of study:

• Superconducting qubits
• Exciton science
• Bose-Einstein condensate
• 2D materials (graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, etc.)
• Plasmonics

In 2024, He joins UQ as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under an ARC Linkage Project "Surface and Interface Engineering for Superconducting Quantum Circuits," pursuing high-quality superconducting quantum circuits using surface engineering strategies.

Please find his publication list via google scholar profile https://scholar.google.com.tw/citations?user=EvKa9qIAAAAJ&hl=en

Biography: Dr. Peng Chen is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early-Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow in the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. In 2020, he got his PhD degree from School of Chemical Engineering at UQ, before moving to AIBN for two consecutive fellowships: Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) Research Fellow (2020-2022) and ARC DECRA Fellow (2023-2025).

Research: Dr. Chen's research focuses on the development of low-cost and efficient thin-film photovoltaic technologies for renewable energy conversion and storage, including perovskite solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and solar hydrogen production. In 2018, he pioneered the development of bilayer 2D-3D heterostructures for stable perovskite solar cells (Adv. Funct. Mater. 2018, 28, 1706923; citation: >750 times). In 2021, he participated in the design of ultrastable perovskite-MOF glassy composites for lighting applications (Science 2021, 374, 621). In late 2023, he led the team to achieve a certified world-record efficiency of 16.65% for lead-free perovskite solar cells (Nature Nanotechnology 2025, 20, 779). In the past 9 years at UQ, he has contributed to 60 peer-reviewed publications in top journals, including Science (×1), Nature Nanotechnology (×1), Nature Energy (×1), Nature Communications (×3), Advanced Materials (×3), Angewandte Chemie International Edition (×7), Journal of the American Chemistry Society (×1), Advanced Energy Materials (×4), ACS Nano (×3), Advanced Functional Materials (×4), Nano Energy (×3), etc. His publications have attracted >6500 citations with a H-index of 33 (Google Scholar). He has attracted over $3.6 million competitive research funds from ARC, ARENA, Australian Government, etc.

Teaching activities: Dr Chen is currently a lecturer of ENGY4000 Energy Systems (Solar Cells and Electrochemical Storage) and MATE7016 Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage (Solar Cell Fabrication and Recycling) in the faculty of EAIT.

Aleksandar D. Rakić leads the Photonics and Microwave Engineering group at The University of Queensland focusing on the development of technologies for sensing and imaging across the electromagnetic spectrum including microwave, terahertz wave and optical systems.

Professor Rakić’s research focuses on the principles of laser feedback interferometry with semiconductor lasers, and on the application of these principles to imaging and sensing. Rakić group pioneered the development of several world’s first laser-feedback interferometric sensors including systems based on monolithic Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser arrays (VCSELs), blue-green lasers, terahertz quantum cascade lasers and mid-infrared interband cascade lasers.

His current focus is on the development of sensing and imaging systems exploiting the THz spectrum for applications from security and defence to in vivo biomedical imaging. His other principal contributions relate to the design and characterization of surface-emitting optoelectronic devices (VCSELs and light emitting diodes) and modelling of optical materials.

Dr Torniainen's main research interests are in the fields of biomedical signal and image processing, biophotonics, and applied spectroscopy. He holds BSc/MSc in Electrical Engineering from Aalto University (Finland, 2015) and a PhD in Applied Physics from University of Eastern Finland (Finland, 2020). He has previously worked with developing preprocessing techniques for EEG/MEG, real-time analysis methods for physiological signals (e.g., ECG/EMG/EDA), and near-infrared spectroscopy based analysis of tissue integrity for musculoskeletal tissues. His current research focus is on machine learning in image processing, analysis, and synthesis of biomedical images acquired using a combination of terahertz imaging, nano-FTIR, and Raman spectroscopy. The purpose of this study is to better understand the interaction between light and multi-layered tissues such as articular cartilage and skin.

Dr. Allison Fish is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research lies at the intersections of law, socio-cultural anthropology, and science and technology studies. She has completed higher degree studies in law (JD), public administration (MPA), and anthropology (PhD). Prior to joining UQ Dr. Fish was an assistant professor in the School of Informatics & Computing at Indiana University.

The three questions that have directed much of her recent work are: What are the legal forms, technological infrastructures, and cultural logics that shape information/knowledge management practices? How do law and technology function together to mediate access? And How is accessibility increasingly framed as a fundamental human right and critical pathway to social enfranchisement?

To date, the bulk of her research has addressed the application of intellectual property law to the regulation of various domains including; international markets for South Asian classical health systems, the development of digital archives and databases designed to function as defensive publications against future patents, the impact of open access on scholarly communication practices, and licensing and attribution practices in open source software communities.

Professor Michael Brünig is the Head of School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of Queensland (UQ), a role he took over in 2016 but with an interruption from 2019-2021 to lead UQ’s Business School.

Prof Brünig is a strategic thinker, an innovation expert, and an experienced change manager with international experience from Europe, the United States, and Australia. He is passionate about building strong performing teams and has experience in bringing large projects with substantial funding to fruition, igniting entrepreneurial spirit in students and staff, and driving impact from research through partnering, commercialisation and spin-off companies.

Before joining UQ, Prof Brünig worked with the CSIRO. As an executive manager with the organisation, he led an initiative to establish a $140m National Research Flagship on Digital Productivity and later guided the business through a merger to create Data61, a national research powerhouse focusing on data innovation. Professor Brünig started his career in research and development in the automotive industry in Germany and Silicon Valley in the United States after completing his PhD at RWTH Aachen, Germany.

Prof Brünig is a sought-after expert with respect to research translation. He sits on multiple boards as non-executive director, is technical advisor to start-up companies in Australia and is frequently consulted as a subject matter expert. Within UQ, Prof Brünig has helped to create UQ Ventures and UQ Innovate, units that foster entrepreneurship among students and academics and provide the creative environment to be successful.

Under Prof Brünig’s leadership, UQ started multiple significant initiatives, including UQ Cyber, the National Industry 4.0 Energy Testlab, the AI Initiative and with partners the QLD Government AI Hub. He is also highly influential in shaping UQ’s curriculum. He initiated the Bachelor of Computer Science, the Master of Cyber Security that is modelled using the US National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education framework and UQ’s first full online Master of Business Analytics. He also was a key contributor to creating the Graduate Certificate in Clinical Informatics and Digital Health.