The handling of non-spherical micron-sized objects is a challenge for the manufacturing industry and for the wider exploitation of nanomaterials. Current manipulation techniques consist of pick-and-place machines used to place microelectronic components onto circuit boards, and optical methods that use laser radiation to manipulate objects. Pick-and-place methods are unsuitable for objects smaller than 100 microns because electrostatic and Van der Waals attraction prevents their release.

Alex Savin, a third year DPhil student in Prof Peter Norreys group in Atomic and Laser Physics, received the runner-up student presentation prize for his talk at the International Conference on High Energy Density science (ICHED 2019) conference in University College Oxford in April 2019. Alex's paper was entitled "Energy Absorption in the Laser-QED Regime" and described the interaction of multi-petawatt laser pulses with solid targets.

Marko Mayr, a second-year DPhil student under the supervision of Prof Peter Norreys, was awarded a best poster competition prize by an expert panel at the Laser Plasma Accelerator Workshop, Split, Croatia, 6th -10th May 2019. Marko's poster was entitled "Wakefields in a Cluster Plasma" and described the research work he had conducted at the Clarendon Laboratory over the past eighteen months since he started his doctoral degree.

The technology available to licence is a new technique for using higher order Hermite-Gaus (HG) modes to increase the channel capacity in telecommunication networks via HG mode selective multiplexing. The bandwidth of telecommunication networks can consequently be brought up to the theoretical maximum for a particular time-frequency resource.
As the device proposed operates noise-free, the invention is expected to be of use in applications.

High capacity telecommunications using multiple modes

Our world and the whole Universe is full of turbulent fluids, usually in the plasma state. Most people are familiar with the notion of turbulence. Whether it is the chaotic swirls that appear as you add milk to your coffee or tea or the unpredictable motions of the atmosphere all too familiar to frequent fliers. However, despite this ubiquity, it is exceptionally hard to pin down in precise mathematical terms, with current theories either derived empirically or through dimensional analysis.

Peter Norreys, Oxford’s Professor of Inertial Fusion Science, is chairing the “International Conference on High Energy Density Science” in University College Oxford on behalf of the Institute of Physics plasma physics group from 1st – 5th April 2019. The 120 registered participants from all over the world will be coming to Oxford discuss a range of topics ranging from the behaviour of matter under extreme pressures, laboratory plasma astrophysics, progress in inertial confinement fusion through to high laser electric field phenomena.

Oliver Humphries and Sam Vinko from Oxford Physics were part of one of the first user experiments to take place at the European XFEL, the flagship x-ray free-electron laser facility currently being commissioned at DESY in Hamburg, Germany. The first user results were reported at the annual XFEL User meeting on 23 January.