About us
We are a theoretical research group at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics and Science at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The group is lead by Assistant Professor Matthew R. Foreman.
Our research focuses on optical and plasmonic sensing, polarisation sensitive imaging, disordered media and electromagnetic theory. More information on some of our past and present projects can be found by visiting our Research pages.
Recent news
Sensors special issue - call for papers
3 May 2023: Together with Zahid Yaqoob, Matthew Foreman is guest editing a new Special Issue in Sensors MDPI on "Advanced Sensing and Imaging Technologies". Please consider submitting an original article or review. We invite contributions in these fields including, but certainly not limited to, recent developments in optical bio-, chemical or physical sensors, molecular detection, microscopy, fluorescence, deep-tissue or computational imaging and their applications in healthcare, nanotechnology, metrology, environmental monitoring, defence and/or astronomy. The deadline for submissions is 20 August 2023. Full details can be found here.
Congratulations Niall!
20 Apr 2023: Niall successfully defended his PhD thesis today after a long 4+ hour viva! Congratulations on the hard work. His thesis centers around developing a numerical modelling technique describing propagation of polarised light through disordered media, and will be available soon. Thanks also to his two examiners. Prof. Jacopo Bertolotti from University of Exeter and Dr. Eva-Maria Graefe from Imperial College.
FOM 23 poster
2 Apr 2023: It is time again for the Focus on Microscopy conference. This year Zhonghe is in Porto, Portugal to present his poster on polarisation sensitive phase contrast microscopy as a route to readout of polarisation multiplexed optical data storage. If you want a preview of his poster you can view it here. Good luck Zhonghe!
Recent publications
Abstract : In this work we present a method for generating random matrices describing electromagnetic scattering from disordered media containing dielectric particles with prescribed single particle scattering characteristics. Resulting scattering matrices automatically satisfy the physical constraints of unitarity, reciprocity and time reversal, whilst also incorporating the polarization properties of electromagnetic waves and scattering anisotropy. Our technique therefore enables statistical study of a variety of polarization phenomena, including depolarization rates and polarization-dependent scattering by chiral particles. In this vein, we perform numerical simulations for media containing isotropic and chiral spherical particles of different sizes for thicknesses ranging from the single to multiple scattering regime and discuss our results, drawing comparisons to established theory.
Abstract : We report sensing of single nanoparticles using disordered metallic nanoisland substrates supporting surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Speckle patterns arising from leakage radiation of elastically scattered SPPs provides a unique fingerprint of the scattering microstructure at the sensor surface. Experimental measurements of the speckle decorrelation are presented and shown to enable detection of sorption of individual gold nanoparticles and polystyrene beads. Our approach is verified through bright-field and fluorescence imaging of particles adhering to the nanoisland substrate.
Abstract : We study the polarisation properties of random N×N scattering matrices distributed according to the circular orthogonal ensemble. We interpret 2×2 sub-blocks of the scattering matrix as Jones matrices and study their statistical properties. Using the polar decomposition, we derive probability density functions for retardance and diattenuation from scattering matrices of arbitrary size and in the limit N → ∞.
Funding
Our research is supported by generous funding from:
