Nonlinear Physics Center at the Australian National University is engaged in theoretical and experimental research in several areas of physics unified by the general concepts of nonlinear physics and the physics of electromagnetic waves. Nonlinear Physics Center is composed of several major research groups with not sharply defined boundaries.
The research on composite structures and left-handed metamaterials was initiated in 2002 and the current directions involve the study of the phenomenon of negative refraction, nonlinear metamaterials and left-handed materials, and imagining including the applications of metamaterials to MRI. Recently, the group developed novel concepts for tunable and reconfigurable metamaterials, and supported them by a series of experimental observations at microwave and THz frequencies.
Most recently, we suggested to employ metasurfaces formed by an array of wires placed inside the scanner under the studied object, and demonstrated a giant enhancement of the magnetic field by means of subwavelength near-field manipulation with metasurface, thus strongly increasing the scanner sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio, and image resolution. Our preliminary experimental results suggest that this effect will be useful for commercially available MRI scanners and biological tissue samples, and can enhance the functionality of widely available low field MRI devices.
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Laboratory: Nonlinear Physics CentreScientist leader: Prof. Yuri Kivshar
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- Key personnel
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Prof. Yuri S. Kivshar, received a PhD degree in theoretical physics in 1984 from the Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering (Kharkov, Ukraine). From 1988 to 1993 he worked at different research centers in USA, France, Spain, and Germany, and in 1993 he moved to the Australian National University where he established Nonlinear Physics Center being currently Head of the Center and Distinguished Professor. His research interests include nonlinear photonics, optical solitons, nanophotonics, and metamaterials. He is Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Optical Society of America, the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics (UK), Deputy Director of the Center of Excellence for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems CUDOS (Australia) and Research Director of Metamaterial Laboratory (Russia). He received many prestigious international awards including the Lyle Medal of the Australian Academy of Science and the State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology. Role in the project : Prof. Yuri Kivshar will link strong theoretical with the capabilities of metamaterial experimental groups to develop and design a novel type of metasurfaces for MRI scanners.
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Mr. Alexey Slobozhanyuk (18 January 1991), Engineer, PhD student. Key interests: theoretical and experimental studies of metamaterials: nonlinear metamaterials, conformational metamaterials with nonlinear chirality, sub-wavelength imaging, metamaterials and metasurfaces for improvement of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. He is an author of 26 journal papers and 10 reports at international conferences. Role in the Project: analytical and numerical modeling, measurements of RF coils with metamaterials.
