Sensors Devices & Optoelectronics

The optoelectronic properties of metal halide perovskite (MHP) semiconductors make them attractive for use as active materials in photovoltaics, LEDs, ionizing radiation detection and photocatalysis.  However the practical application of MHPs faces significant barriers.  Researchers at The University of Queensland have developed a new class of MHP composites.  The precursors can be made from relatively cheap materials, using a scalable mechanochemical process.  Similarly, the composite material is fabricated via nearly solvent-free and scalable processing steps.

Key benefits:

• Composite produced using scalable and cost-effective solid-state processing techniques
• Orders of magnitude brighter photoluminescence of composite compared to pure metal halide perovskite
• 10,000 h underwater stability and over two years’ storage stability in air.

Researchers at The University of Queensland (UQ) have developed a technology that constitutes a major leap beyond the current commercially available systems. UQ researchers have developed a laser feedback interferometric (LFI) transceiver based on a terahertz (THz) quantum cascade laser (QCL) utilising patent pending technology.  The transceiver is built around a small footprint (~2mm) THz QCL and provides a clear pathway towards commercially viable, low maintenance THz sensing and imaging systems.

The THz frequency band is the most recent portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to be technologically harnessed for imaging and sensing applications.  While significant advancements have been achieved in deploying sensors and full-body scanners operating at millimetre-wave frequencies, access to the genuine THz spectrum (1-10 THz) will be required for the next generation of high-performance, high resolution imaging and sensing systems.

Key benefits:

• High-resolution, high frame-rate imaging
• Compact and simple: THz illuminator and camera in one package
• High sensitivity and high power.

Researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ) have developed a new design for a passive, integrated, on-chip, superconducting microwave circulator with high bandwidth (~500 MHz).

Microwave circulators are ubiquitous elements in microwave electronics and are essential to both fundamental science as well as commercial technology such as radar and mobile phone communications. Commercially available circulators are wave-interference devices based on the Faraday effect, which requires relatively strong permanent magnets to break time-reversal symmetry.  Both their size and the necessary strong magnetic fields make them unsuited to large-scale integration with superconducting circuits.

The design by UQ researchers is based on superconducting tunnel junctions, either Josephson (JJ) or quantum phase slip (QPS) junctions in a ring geometry.  Two further improvements have been demonstrated in a second-generation design which increases linearity of circuits, as well as development of a design approach that increases bandwidth and reduces sensitivity to perturbations in external bias parameters.

Key benefits:

• Replaces large (cm-scale) discrete component with small on-chip integrated component
• High bandwidth and high power design
• Key enabler for superconducting quantum devices and computing
• Small footprint and device volume scales to arrays of 10,000s with existing tools and processes.