Department of Physics and Astronomy
Rich Mildren - ARC Future Fellow
Rich Mildren is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the MQ Photonics Research Centre. The Fellowship is aimed to boost research capacity in areas important to Australia and to nurture collaborations with industry, other research institutions and other disciplines. He brings substantial expertise in the development of novel and versatile photonic sources, instrumentation and applications. His PhD and early postdoctoral research was in the plasma kinetics of high power metal vapour lasers. He has studied ultrafast lasers at the National Research Council in Pisa, Italy. For 3 years (2005-2008) he led R&D for a University spin-off company in wavelength-switchable medical lasers, during which time he brought several medical laser products through to the stage of medical device regulatory approval. His most recent focus is in crystalline Raman lasers, particularly in the area of diamond lasers (see also Raman Laser Group).
Research Areas
- Crystalline Raman lasers, including diamond Raman lasers
- Kinetics of plasma-based laser and light sources
- Multi-wavelength and wavelength-switchable lasers
- Laser and light sources in biomedicine
Journal Publications
Contact Information
News
Dec 2011: "Recent Progress in Diamond Raman Lasers" Symposium plenary presented at the Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston
Nov 2011: First eye-safe diamond Raman laser reported in Optics Express (Sabella et al).
Oct 2011: Australian diamond photonics research (Macquarie and University of Melbourne) has been reviewed in the Chemistry World magazine. See Cover Story here.
Aug 2011: Postdeadline paper accepted at the Pacific Rim Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (Sydney 28/8-2/9) on a continuous wave Raman conversion of Nd:YAG laser obtained in diamond using a simple singly resonant cavity (Kitzler et al).
Jul 2011: Diamond evaporates under exposure to ultraviolet light. As reported in the open-access journal Optical Materials Express, and reviewed in Nature News, the process may provide a highly practical method for creating smooth graphite-free microstructures in diamond.
Jul 2011: Diamond Raman lasers are highlighted in the recent edition of Nature Photonics in the article "Diamond Photonics" by Igor Aharonovich, Andrew Greentree and Steven Prawer.
May 2011: First Raman laser directly pumped in the deep ultraviolet reported in Optics Express.
Feb 2011: The first single pass and most efficient side pumped crystalline Raman laser demonstrated as reported in Optics Letters in Optics Letters.
Jan 2011: “Rock Stars” article in Sydney Morning Herald highlights Macquarie’s diamond photonics research.