People

Revision as of 17:45, 28 October 2019 by Newton (talk | contribs)


Group Members:

Marcus C. Newton

Dr Marcus C. Newton

BSc (London), PhD (UCL), MInstP, FHEA

Principal Investigator

Academic Background

Dr. Newton is a lecturer in the department of Physics & Astronomy. He earned his Ph.D. from University College London in the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN). He then spent a number of highly productive years at the LCN conducting research in the field of coherent X-ray imaging and utilising the APS light source for experiments on nanoscale crystals. He was then invited to join Hokkaido University as professor of physics at the assistant level and was awarded the prestigious JSPS Kakenhi award to carry out research into ultra-fast structural dynamics using the SACLA X-ray free electron laser (XFEL). He subsequently returned to the UK and joined the Physics & Astronomy department at the University of Southampton.

Undergraduate Teaching

Crystalline Solids, Computer Techniques in Physics

Research Interests

Dr. Newton is interested in understanding phenomena in correlated electronic materials such as vanadium dioxide and zinc oxide. His research is focused on the use of coherent X-ray diffraction imaging (CXDI) to study nanoscale materials at hard X-ray synchrotron sources such as the SACLA X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) facility and the Diamond Light Source. He is also at the forefront in the study of self-assembled nanoscale materials and devices. These include group II-VI semiconductor materials such as zinc oxide (ZnO).

Dr. Newton also conducts theoretical research into non-linear optimisation and the phase retrieval problem which is encountered in a number of disciplines including X-ray crystallography, sparse-aperture imagery and astronomy. Dr. Newton also continues to investigate how the theory of compressed sensing can be applied to the non-convex phase retrieval problem.

He is also the author of the Interactive Phase Retrieval Suite, the first software package that allows for real-time visualisation of the reconstruction of phase information in both two and three dimensions. This is used for analysing diffraction data obtained from coherent X-ray diffraction imaging experiments.



File:Ahmed.jepg
Ahmed Mohamed

Ahmed Mohamed

Masters Student



Visiting Scientists:

Ulrich Wagner


Dr Ulrich Wagner

X-ray Optics Scientist

Ulrich is a member of the X-ray optics group at the Swiss Light Source (SLS), Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland.


Dusan Plasienka


Dr Dusan Plasienka

Dusan is a visiting scientist with interests that include ab initio modelling of structural and electronic transitions in crystalline and disordered materials, high-pressure and temperature behavior of liquids and solids, phase diagrams, crystal structure prediction and simulations of transformation mechanisms from molecular dynamics and metadynamics.





Alumni:

George Lancaster

George Lancaster

Masters Student


Charles Opoku

Dr Charles Opoku

Post-doctoral Research Associate

Adam Pietraszewski

Adam Pietraszewski

Masters Student


Anthony Kenny

Anthony Kenny

Masters Student


Simon Payne

Simon Payne

Masters Student

Charlie Turner

Charlie Turner

Masters Student



Elena Ureña Horno

Elena Ureña Horno

Ph.D. candidate