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Dr Xiao Guo is a Research Fellow at The University of Queensland, specialising in nanophotonics, nanoscale imaging and light–matter interactions. He uses scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) and mid-infrared and terahertz spectroscopy to explore material properties beyond the resolution (100 to 1000 times better) of conventional optical microscopes.

His research focuses on semiconductors, nanomaterials and nanostructures using invisible waves (terahertz and mid-infrared, 0 to 70 THz)

His undergraduate experience included 1.5 years of research on piezoelectric materials and flexible electronics alongside his coursework, followed by a 1-year honours thesis on spin-wave dynamics in ribbon-shaped magnetic materials. During his master’s studies in electrical engineering at the University of Hong Kong, he also learned quite a bit of deep learning along with other HKU professors every week (it is just CNN + GAN for image segmentation, then find U-net is fine :))). Dr Guo lectures ELEC3100: Fundamentals of Electromagnetic Fields and Waves at UQ. He contributes to the research community through invited talks, conference committees and peer review, having completed more than 70 independent journal reviews since 2022. His invited review on terahertz near-field optical microscopy in Applied Physics Reviews was recognised as an ESI Highly Cited Paper in 2024 and 2025. Personal website: xiaoguo1995.github.io

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.

Professor White leads the Quantum Technology Laboratory at UQ, which he established in 1999, and is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow. He is internationally recognised for research in quantum science and technology, and is interested in all aspects of quantum weirdness. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the American Physical Society, and Optica. Andrew’s research spans: quantum foundations; production, manipulation and exploitation of quantum states of light, both in conventional optics and nanophotonics; and utilising quantum technology, be it in quantum computation, quantum communication, quantum sensing, or neuromorphic computing. Details can be found at the Quantum Laboratory website.

Professor White has worked with twenty-two postdoctoral researchers since 2001, five of whom received ARC Discovery Early Career Researchers Awards whilst working in his lab, six receiving Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships subsequently and one a Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship. He has supervised more than 40 postgraduate students, who have received an array of awards including a Rhodes Scholarship, three Springer PhD thesis prizes, Australian representative at the Lindau Nobel Meeting, the only-ever runner for the Australian Institute of Physics Bragg Medal, and UQ Medals and Valedictorian, to name but a few.

Bio: Andrew was raised in a Queensland dairy town, before heading south to the big smoke of Brisbane to study chemistry, maths, physics and, during the World Expo, the effects of alcohol on uni students from around the world. Deciding he wanted to know what the cold felt like, he first moved to Canberra, then Germany—completing his PhD in quantum physics—before moving on to Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico where he quickly discovered that there is more than enough snow to hide a cactus, but not nearly enough to prevent amusing your friends when you sit down. Over the years he has conducted research on various topics including shrimp eyes, nuclear physics, optical vortices, and quantum computers. He likes quantum weirdness for its own sake, but his current research aims to explore and exploit the full range of quantum behaviours—notably entanglement—with an eye to engineering new technologies and scientific applications. He is currently Director of the Centre of Engineered Quantum Systems, an Australia-wide, 14-year long, research effort by more than 250 scientists to build quantum machines that harness the quantum world for practical applications.