Dream Fellowship - Professor Edmund Linfield

The last 15-20 years have witnessed a remarkable growth in the field of terahertz (THz) frequency science and engineering, which has now become a vibrant, international, cross-disciplinary research activity. Yet, despite long-standing efforts by the international community, difficulties remain in accessing and exploiting this central region of the electromagnetic spectrum (300 GHz to 10 THz in frequency) owing to the lack of compact, solid state, sources.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, the range of potential applications for the THz frequency range of the spectrum is enormous, and includes: astronomy; pharmaceutical process monitoring; wireless communications; dermatological imaging; and the study of condensed matter physics and nanostructures. Equally, much progress has been made in developing THz sources, with a specific international focus being on the development of THz quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), which were first demonstrated in 2002. Many exciting challenges face THz researchers. Of particular interest to me are questions such as:

1) How can we measure condensed matter systems (whether semiconducting, superconducting or magnetic), and nanostructures, in the THz frequency range? What new, fundamental, physics will be revealed, especially at cryogenic temperatures and at high magnetic fields?

2) Can one engineer THz QCLs both photonically and electronically to make a source that is as ubiquitous as solid state, semiconductor devices are in other parts of the spectrum? Can THz QCLs meet the stringent requirements of space-borne technology for THz astronomy?

3) Can THz radiation be used to study biological materials, especially at a cellular level?

It is undoubtedly true that to maximise impact across the THz spectral range, there is a requirement for inter-disciplinary collaboration between researchers across science and engineering. This presents many challenges, and it is such challenges that I will explore through this Fellowship.

The Fellowship will free up my time from current University teaching/administrative commitments, and allow me to focus on addressing such key issues, and hence define the international agenda for the next decade and beyond in the field of THz science and engineering. It will allow me to have extended visits to leading international researchers, in a way that it is not normally possible with University commitments. From these visits, I will not only develop new research activities in the THz field, but also understand how some of the world's leading researchers develop creative ideas, assemble successful research teams from academic staff through to graduate students, and undertake cross-disciplinary research outside the traditional boundaries. I will then take these ideas, combine them with the metods that I have used to build research teams and projects to date, and use professional organisations within the UK to bring new approaches for developing creativity to my research.

The Fellowship will give transformational benefits for me, my research group, and my research area, as I will be given time to focus fully on developing my research activities, and evaluating new ways of conducting research.

An immediate longterm benefit will be in the staff development that occurs at all levels of the academic pipeline, from undergraduate and postgraduate students, to post-doctoral researchers, and academic staff. This will directly impact on the way we do research, and specifically enable the development of cross-disciplinarity, the establishment of new collaborations, and the generation of innovative ideas. However, it will also lead to trained researchers, with a broader set of skills, being available to both academia and industry.

In addition to developing new research programmes, I will also use the Fellowship to explore innovative and creative ways of translating pure research ideas through to commercialisation, and increasing engagement with industry. For example, a core focus for my Fellowship is a set of extended visits to leading international research laboratories in the US, far-East and Europe. This will not only allow me to develop new research activities in my own research field, but also enable me to understand better the processes that other leading researchers use to build research teams, develop creative research and learning methodologies, and translate their research outputs to end users. As one example, I will visit Professor K Kawase (Nagoya University/RIKEN, Japan), who has taken THz technology to end users, overcoming the barriers to commercial exploitation (with the Japanese Post Office using his THz technology for mail screening). Whilst the specific details may not be directly applicable in the UK, understanding how research staff were engaged in technology transfer will be invaluable, and will enable me to maximise the impact of my research both with academia and industry.

Through developing trained researchers, new methods of working collaboratively, and innovative approaches both to undertaking research and translating this research to the commercial sector, this Fellowship has the potential to impact directly on the nation's health, wealth and culture. Specifically, it will enhance the creative output of researchers, and this will have longterm impact in both the academic and industrial sectors. This impact will start to occur at the beginning of the Fellowship. However, I anticipate that the innovative approaches developed during the Fellowship will have impact far beyond the two-year duration of the Fellowship, and leave a legacy of new innovative, creative approaches to undertaking research.