Quantum physicist Dr Sahand Mahmoodian has been awarded a ARC Future Fellowship and will join UTS Science to further his research in quantum technologies. Dr Mahmoodian is one of three UTS Future Fellows announced for 2020.
Dr Mahmoodian’s research aims to advance the understanding of new emergent quantum phenomena arising from engineered interactions between many particles and to unravel the quantum dynamics of these systems.
The project is expected to assist in producing new quantum technologies such as sources and detectors of quantum light and new atomic clocks.
Associate Professor Nathan Langford, ARC Future Fellow, UTS Science School of Mathematics and Physical Sciences (UTS MaPS) said that engineered quantum systems are at the heart of a new quantum technology revolution that includes Big Tech applications like quantum computing.
“Dr Mahmoodian’s research will develop exciting new breakthroughs in this area by exploring new properties of quantum matter that emerge from the complex interaction of many particles, like in a quantum computer, but here engineered from light instead of atomic systems.
This project is a very exciting, groundbreaking area of research and overlaps strongly with UTS’s existing strengths in quantum technology, quantum optics and quantum computing, Associate Professor Langford said.
Professor Christopher Poulton, Discipline Leader UTS MaPS, said that Dr Mahmoodian’s outstanding qualities as a researcher were evident when he knew him as a PhD student at Sydney University.
“Since moving to Europe his research has really gone from strength to strength, and we are exceptionally pleased to attract him back to Sydney for his Future Fellowship at UTS.
“To my mind this is exactly what the Future Fellowships are for – attracting the best and most talented researchers, who have made an international name for themselves overseas, to make their research home here, and to contribute to the world-leading research carried out in the Australian scientific community, Professor Poulton said.
The two other new Future Fellows are Dr Qilin Wang, from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Dr Lu Qin, from the Centre for Artificial Intelligence.
Read the full UTS Future Fellow announcement