Monash University has been awarded $33.4 million by the Australian Research Council (ARC) for the establishment of The ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies. In total, nine ARC Centres of Excellence were approved for funding, with Monash leading or involved in five of them. Monash University Vice-Provost…
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FLEET wants to make science more accessible to the wider community, and we want to help build a passion for science in the young Australians who will be the country’s future great scientists and engineers. We encourage families to do activities at home that foster a love for science from…
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Applying an electric field switches conduction mode of a topological material FLEET researchers achieved a significant landmark in the search for a functional topological transistor in 2017, using an applied electric field to switch the electronic conduction mode of a topological material. A ‘gate’ electrode was used to switch the…
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Nobel physics laureate Prof Wolfgang Ketterle told a crowd of around 200 at Swinburne University of Technology last week about Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), and other strange states of matter that exist at nano-Kelvin temperatures, which open a new door to the quantum world where particles behave as waves and ‘march…
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A super-cooled, superconducting Mobius-track impresses the crowds, helps embed FLEET science As a cool science demo, FLEET’s superconductor Mobius track ticks all the boxes: liquid nitrogen – tick. Superconductor – tick. Cool shape – tick. Relevance to the science – tick tick tick. The track features 1500 neodymium magnets, fixed…
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A FLEET study led by University of Queensland’s David Colas clarifies recent studies of negative mass, investigating the strange phenomenon of self-interference. NEGATIVE MASS?? When we think of ‘mass’, we usually consider the ‘inertial’ mass – the resistance of a body to acceleration due to an applied force. For a…
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First ever large-scale 2D surface deposition of piezoelectric material Simple, inexpensive technique opens new fields for piezo-sensors & energy harvesting Study authors, from left: Kouresh Kalantar-zadeh, Azmira Jannat, Nitu Syed, Torben Daeneke Researchers have developed a revolutionary method to ‘print’ large-scale sheets of two dimensional piezoelectric material, opening new opportunities…
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Significant step toward future topological electronics The first electric field-switchable topological material Topological transistors would be an ultra-low energy , beyond CMOS solution to ICT energy use after the end of Moore’s Law Study authors (from left) Dr Mark Edmonds, James Collins and Prof Michael Fuhrer are in the School…
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Over a dozen FLEET researchers flew the flag for FLEET and future computing at the recent Melbourne Knowledge Week showcase. Reps introduced the public to ICT energy use, electromagnetism, superconductivity (via FLEET’s supercooled Mobius track) , and the mechanics of binary operations that underlie all modern computing, via the Centre’s…
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In a paper released today in Science Advances, UNSW researchers describe the first observation of a native ferroelectric metal. The study represents the first example of a native metal with bistable and electrically switchable spontaneous polarization states – the hallmark of ferroelectricity. “We found coexistence of native metallicity and ferroelectricity…
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First observation of excitonic insulator New exotic state was first predicted in 1960s A University of Wollongong / Monash University collaboration has found evidence of a new phase of matter predicted in the 1960s: the excitonic insulator. The unique signatures of an excitonic insulating phase were observed in antimony Sb(110)…
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In January 2020 FLEET brought the 10th International Conference on Spontaneous Coherence in Excitonic Systems (ICSCE10) to Australia for the first time. Continuing this 15-year tradition from the global scientific community interested in various quantum phenomena, ICSCE10 was hosted at the Arts Centre Melbourne amidst smoke storms resulting from one…
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An Australian-led study uses a scanning-tunnelling microscope ‘trick’ to map electronic structure in Na3Bi, seeking an answer to that material’s extremely high electron mobility. In studying the topological Dirac semimetal, the team found that exchange and correlation effects are crucial to electron speed, and therefore mobility, and thus to the…
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new thermoelectric materials could unlock body-heat powered personal devices, such as wrist-watches A new University of Wollongong study overcomes a major challenge of thermoelectric materials, which can convert heat into electricity and vice versa, improving conversion efficiency by more than 60%. Current and potential future applications range from low-maintenance, solid-state…
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Applying machine learning to automated characterisation of atomically-thin materials Just as James Cameron’s Terminator-800 was able to discriminate between “clothes, boots, and a motorcycle”, machine-learning could identify different areas of interest on 2D materials. The simple, automated optical identification of fundamentally different physical areas on these materials (eg, areas displaying…
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The Liquid-metals spin-off company Liquid Metal Plus (LM+) initiated in 2020 with FLEET investigators Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh (UNSW) and Dr Torben Daeneke (RMIT), together with Dorna Esrafilzadeh (UNSW), was launched in April 2021. Pushing print on flexible touchscreens Climate rewind: turning CO2 back into coal The company has two areas of…
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FLEET welcomes four new research fellows, working in disparate roles across the Centre and all contributing to the improved diversity that makes the Centre greater than the sum of its parts: Dr Emma Laird (UQ) Dr Yonatan Ashlea Alava (UNSW) Dr Mengting Zhao (Monash) Dr Grace Causer (Monash) The four…
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Designer heterostructure is a potential high-temperature QAHE, where a topological material is sandwiched between two ferromagnets A Monash University-led research team has discovered that a structure comprising an ultra-thin topological insulator sandwiched between two 2D ferromagnetic insulators becomes a large-bandgap quantum anomalous Hall insulator. Such a heterostructure provides an avenue…
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Eddies in an exotic liquid known as a superfluid merge to form large vortices, analogous to how cyclones form in the turbulent atmosphere. The new research, by a team from The University of Queensland, EQUS and FLEET will be important for emerging technological applications of superfluidity, such as precision sensing.…
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FLEET’s annual workshop is our one opportunity each year for all Centre researchers to gather together and share research outcomes and progress. This year, #FLEET2022 will be held at the Aspire Event Centre, the Central building 230 Wollongong Innovation Campus, NSW. We look forward to seeing everyone IN PERSON this…
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The inSTEM conference held in Brisbane 20-21 July, was a networking and career-development conference for people from marginalised or underrepresented groups in STEM, and their allies. The 2022 inSTEM was a partnership of ARC Centres of Excellence, industry transformation training centre and Australian Defence, recognising the wide recognition of improving…
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Over 200 in-person audience members and more than 400 online contestants competed in this month’s National Science Quiz, co-presented by FLEET with a collaboration of nine research organisations. Return host ABC TV and radio presenter Charlie Pickering, who has hosted each NSQ since the inaugural edition in 2017, chaired two…
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Can a solid be a superfluid? Bilayer excitons form a quantum supersolid A collaboration of Australian and European physicists predict that layered electronic 2D semiconductors can host a curious quantum phase of matter called the supersolid. The supersolid is a very counterintuitive phase indeed. It is made up of particles…
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A large collaboration of researchers led by the University of Wollongong has used nuclear techniques at ANSTO and other methods to develop a process to engineer nanoscale arrays of conducting channels for advanced scalable electronic circuitry. As reported in a paper in Nature Communications, investigators created patterns of topological surface edge states on…
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A new expanded mentoring network vastly increases the experience pool available for ECRs and others in 12 participating ARC Centres providing: structured mentoring with ongoing support and oversight access to a range of resources and peer-mentoring groups large, diverse pool of mentors and mentees for both researchers and professional staff.…
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An audience of around 90 gathered for the Meet FLEET event at UNSW earlier this month, comprising researchers, industry representatives and others. A major aim of the event was to serve as a bridge, fostering connections while providing industry professionals and researchers the opportunity to delve into collaborative research and…
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Faster ways to respond to emergencies and ultra-sensitive quantum seismometers for earlier detection of earthquakes, were two ideas that emerged from teams of intrepid researchers from five Centres of Excellence who competed in the inaugural Better Futures Innovation Challenge to solve critical industry problems. Industry partners for the deep-tech hackathon…
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Since June 2017, FLEET has been dedicated to sustainably extending the information technology revolution into the future by developing energy-efficient electronic technologies. Through collaborative efforts and ground-breaking research, we have made substantial contributions to scientific progress and the advancement of electronic technology. FLEET’s impacts extend beyond the laboratory, changing the…
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