Physics
The Physics Department of the University of Otago was the first Physics Department in New Zealand. The Chair in Natural Philosophy was established when the University opened in July 1871. Ever since, the Department has embraced innovative teaching methods, promoted a vigorous research ethos, and been committed both to Physics as a discipline and to its applications.
Our research ranges from the fundamental quantum processes that underlie our very existence, through the largest explosions in the solar system, Antarctic ice, supercomputers and robotics, to the development of the next generation of energy efficient homes.
Recent Deposits
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Columnar Ice versus Platelet Ice: Differences, Consequences, and Significance
Antarctic land-fast sea ice (fast ice) is sea ice fastened to land or ice shelves. Fast ice is an important component of Antarctic coastal marine ecosystems, providing a prolific habitat for ice algal communities. Columnar ... -
Asymmetric sub-wavelength Fabry-Perot resonators for gas sensing applications.
This thesis is a report of investigation on resonance-enhanced absorption of light in ultra-thin optically lossy films on metal substrates for gas sensing applications. Planar thin-film structures comprising lossy coatings ... -
Experimental evidence and properties of EMIC wave driven electron precipitation
One of the key drivers of electron losses from the radiation belts is the interaction between radiation belt electrons and the electromagnetic plasma waves that populate the magnetosphere. In particular, electromagnetic ... -
Cold Collisions of Ultracold Atoms
This thesis describes experiments investigating the collisions of alkali metal atoms at energies between 10 - 2000 uK, measured in units of the Boltzmann constant. The atoms are accelerated towards each other using a ... -
Phase ordering dynamics in a ferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate
Spinor Bose-Einstein condensates exhibit both superfluid and magnetic order, and accommodate phases with rich symmetry properties and topological defects. Transitions between these phases can be induced by tuning external ... -
A Stand-Alone 'Self-Locking' Laser
This dissertation presents a stand-alone ’self-locking’ laser. The aim of the project was to develop a prototype of a ’self -locking’ laser that requires no user input, other than to turn the laser on. The prototype was ... -
Coherent Frequency Conversion from Microwave to Optical Fields in an Erbium Doped Y2SiO5 Crystal: Towards the Single Photon Regime
In the context of quantum information technologies superconducting qubits (SQs) are very attractive devices for the manipulation of quantum states, and present themselves as one of our best candidates to build a quantum ... -
Quantum Analogues of Two-Dimensional Classical Turbulence
Turbulence, the irregular motion of fluids, is a challenging problem in physics. Yet some properties of turbulence appear to be universal, independent of the underlying host fluid supporting the motion. Recent studies have ... -
An Investigation of Interference Lithography Applications using Evanescent Fields
Since the dawn of large scale integrated circuitry photolithography has been the primary means of pattern production. Over the following 60 years the size of these patterns has shrunk massively, along with the consequent ... -
An Exergy Analysis of the New Zealand Energy System
Exergy analysis has been shown to be a valuable method of assessing energy use on a national scale. Exergy analysis measures the work potential of mass and energy flows, and therefore more accurately identifies areas with ... -
Development of a Hyperspectral sensor system for model-based remote water constituent inference
This project undertook a model-based inversion of spectral data for remote sensing of water constituents, from satellite based hyperspectral sensors. As the atmosphere effects dominate the observed spectrum, a parameterised ... -
Tight-binding methods for overdamped Brownian motion and their application to molecular motors
Biomolecular motors are molecules that transform energy to perform physiological functions. The operation of molecular motors has a number of interesting physical properties that have attracted a great deal of investigation. ... -
Simulation of the Effect of Ice Shelf Melt around Antarctica in an Earth System Model
The observed increase in Antarctic sea ice area over time is not reproduced by Earth System Models. One proposed reason for this discrepancy is that these models do not realistically represent ice shelves and the associated ... -
Higher-Order GPS Noise Models, with Applications to Position Inference and Vehicle Navigation
This thesis presents an experimental and theoretical investigation of GPS errors. Data from stationary GPS units were gathered from several locations and an analysis of the noise present was undertaken. Several noise models ... -
Energy dependent scattering of ultracold atoms about a Feshbach resonance
In this thesis we explore ultracold atomic collisions in the vicinity of a magnetic Feshbach resonance located at 9.1 G, between 87Rb atoms in the |F = 2, mF = 1> and the |F =1, mF = 1> hyperfine states. We experimentally ... -
Near-deterministic preparation of single atoms and Raman sideband cooling
In this thesis, we present our methods and results towards the development of deterministic preparation of single neutral atoms with a known quantum state in a single trap potential. Firstly, we experimentally study the ... -
Transport of Circularly Polarized Light
The behaviour of circularly polarized light propagating within complex scattering media is investigated. The striking "memory effect" of this form of polarization has previously displayed a significant dependence on various ... -
Controlling Photon Echoes with the Light Shift
Recent progress with rare-earth-ion ensemble quantum memories has resulted in a family of echo-memory protocols which use sequences of pulsed light fields to recall a pulse stored in the ensemble earlier. The simplest of ... -
Drivers and Dynamics of the Ross Sea
The seasonal control mechanisms of the circulation in the Ross Sea are studied here by utilising a climatological three-dimensional numerical model based on the Regional Ocean Model System (ROMS). Of interest are the ... -
Internal gravity waves in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
Internal waves have an impact on many oceanic processes such as heat transport and mixing and have been studied intensively in mid and low latitudes. Their presence in polar regions has received less attention due to ...