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Research
Applying physics to problems that face people
We use light — scattered, stimulated and reconstructed — to identify what tissue, and eventually single molecules, are made of. Each area opens with its key terms, so reviewers, collaborators and prospective students can find the work by the language they already use.
Active
Active research programmes
Three programmes are running now, split between applied work aimed at the clinic and discovery work aimed at the physics.
Optical diagnostics
A rapid, aptamer-based lateral flow assay for vitamin D at the point of need. A fibre-optic Raman probe that measures liver fat content in about a second, in ordinary room light, at a quarter of the cost of the instrument it replaces. Plus EGFR-targeted nanoprobes for imaging aggressive cancers.
Molecular holography
Coherent Raman scattering on nanostructured surfaces. We were the first group in the world to demonstrate CW stimulated SERS, using continuous-wave sources rather than pulsed lasers.
Equitable participation in STEMM
Unlike most physics labs, we publish on who holds physics degrees in Canada and who does not. Canadian Physics Counts is the first national study of the identities of physics students and professionals.
Future focus
Future-focused work
The directions we are building toward now. If your training sits here, this is the most useful time to write to us.
Clinical translation of the steatosis probe
Future focus · with transplant collaborators
Moving the ambient-light probe out of the specimen lab and into a donor-liver clinical study, where the measurement has to survive an operating theatre and a surgeon’s timeline rather than a bench.
Label-free holography of live cells
Future focus · discovery
Tracking hundreds of individually identifiable particles in three dimensions inside a millimetre-scale volume, using vibrational fingerprints instead of fluorescent labels — which bleach, broaden and cannot distinguish hundreds of species at once.
Longitudinal tracking of physics participation
Future focus · with CISE Atlantic
Extending Canadian Physics Counts from a snapshot into a repeated national measurement, so that changes in who enters and stays in physics can be observed rather than assumed.
Completed
Completed programmes
Work the lab carried out and is no longer running. It stays here because the publications are still cited and still describe methods people use — but we are not taking on new students or enquiries in these areas.
Raman spectroscopy of high-temperature superconductors
Electronic and phonon Raman scattering in cuprate superconductors — the doping dependence of the superconducting gap in Bi-2212, pseudogap signatures, and phonon renormalisation in Ca-doped YBCO. This work ran from the 1990s through roughly 2010 and produced fifteen papers.
Combinatorial materials for lithium batteries
High-throughput synthesis and characterisation of thin-film composition-spread libraries — magnetron sputtering of 48-member cuprate libraries, and the electrochemical reaction of lithium with amorphous Si–Sn and Mo–Sn alloys. Carried out largely with the Dahn group at Dalhousie.
Funded by
Who supports our research
The lab holds $2.5M in research grants as principal investigator and $7.3M in joint research grants, with a further $2.2M for science education and outreach. These are the funders behind each current programme.
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) · Springboard Atlantic · Lab2Market (Ready2Launch) · Mitacs · Innovacorp
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) PromoScience · TD Bank · Nova Scotia Department of Education (African Canadian Services) · Council on African Canadian Education · Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs · Dalhousie Faculty of Science · Encana
Join us
These key terms are the application form
Every term above appears as a checkbox on our application form. Tick the ones that match your training and you will know in a minute whether your interests line up with ours.