Author: Zara Falkiner-Rose

2026 COMBS Annual Workshop wrap-up

Posted on by Zara Falkiner-Rose

2026 COMBS Annual Workshop wrap-up

20 February 2026
Rachael Vorwerk

The 2026 COMBS Annual Workshop has just wrapped up in Wollongong.

It was a fantastic four days of presentations, poster sessions, team building and plenty of laughs with more than 120 members of our COMB-unity from across the world.

Together we explored astronomy, precision sensing and measurement, seismology, data communications, laser physics, microscopy and spectroscopy, and education and equity, diversity and inclusion.

The inaugural COMBS Awards

Research excellence doesn’t happen in isolation – it grows through people and collaboration. Our inaugural COMBS Awards aimed to celebrate just that!

At our 2026 COMBS Annual Workshop, we were proud to recognise outstanding individuals and teams across all career stages whose contributions continue to strengthen our Centre and research community.

A massive congratulations to all our award recipients!

✨ Early Career Research Impact Award – Gabriel Britto Monteiro

✨ Early Career Research Outreach and Engagement Award – Prina B.

✨ Early Career Research Award – Caitlin Murray

✨ Team Impact Award – HDR Connect Organising Committee (Megha Sharma, Madeline Hennessey, Ruth Waterman, Gabriel Britto Monteiro, Evan Diamandikos and Jorge Acosta)

✨ Team Outreach and Engagement Award – “Microcomb On Tour” Team (Ben Saunders, Caitlin Murray, Chawaphon (Park) Prayoonyong, and Bill Corcoran)

✨ Team Outreach and Engagement Award – Early Career Researcher Forum (Lisa Haerteis, Sonya Palmer and Toby Mitchell)

✨ Team Research Award – The High Index Glass Microring Survey Team (Yang Sun, Toby Mitchell, Caitlin Murray and Chawaphon (Park) Prayoonyong)

✨ Mentoring and Supervision Award – Irina Kabakova

✨ Director’s Commendation Award – Caitlin Murray

✨ Director’s Special Award – Martijn de Sterke

✨ COMBS Best Poster Award (HDR Students) – Lantian Wei

✨ COMBS Best Poster Award (ECRs, Research Staff & Associate Investigators) – Lisa Haerteis

We’re looking forward to continuing this spirit of innovation, collaboration and collective growth throughout the year ahead.

Well done all!

See highlights from the event in the photo gallery below.

COMBS Award winners

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Sundials, egg timers, or the stopwatch on your phone – what’s the most accurate way to measure a second?

Posted on by Zara Falkiner-Rose

Sundials, egg timers, or the stopwatch on your phone – what’s the most accurate way to measure a second?

16 January 2026
Rachael Vorwerk

Sundials, egg timers, or the stopwatch on your phone – what’s the most accurate way to measure a second?

Listen to Andre Luiten on ABC Adelaide (at 1:09:03)

In a review article published in Optica, our researchers explore how time is measured at the highest level of precision – and what it takes to count hundreds of trillions of atomic ticks per second.

Until recently, the most accurate atomic clocks rely on extremely stable caesium atoms that deliver billions of ticks per second.

This approach is currently being surpassed by a new generation of even more precise atomic clocks. These use optical signals that tick much faster – around a hundred trillion ticks per second.

The only way to work with these atoms is to use a sophisticated tool called an optical frequency comb – this makes these ticks comprehensible by normal electronics.

The challenge is that combs and clocks are still large, complex, and fragile.

At our Centre, we’re working to make the atomic clock + optical frequency comb a powerful frontrunner combination for measuring the second as accurately as possible – by transforming bulky frequency combs into compact, robust microcombs.

Congratulations to Tara Fortier from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Helen Margolis from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and our Chief Investigator Andre Luiten on this timely review article.

 

Read the full review article in Optica here: https://opg.optica.org/optica/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-13-1-143

 

Read the Adelaide University media release here: https://adelaideuni.edu.au/about/news/2026/taking-a-second-to-change-the-time/

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COMBS Summer School: Building literacy in optical frequency combs beyond our Centre

Posted on by Zara Falkiner-Rose

COMBS Summer School: Building literacy in optical frequency combs beyond our Centre

12 December 2025
Rachael Vorwerk

Within our Centre and in the broader photonics community, very few people have experience with optical frequency combs, let alone microcombs.

Following the Australian and New Zealand Conference on Optics and Photonics in
Auckland in December 2025 – where we showcased a working microcomb – we ran our inaugural COMBS Mini Summer School with more than 85 attendees.

In partnership with the Dodd-Walls Centre, five COMBS speakers covered optical frequency comb fundamentals, applications, and a hands-on demonstration.

Summer School speaker program:

  • Scott Diddams from University of Colorado Boulder
  • Martijn de Sterke from University of Sydney
  • Stephane Coen from University of Auckland
  • Irina Kabakova from University of Technology Sydney
  • Bill Corcoran from Monash University

Each of these lectures were recorded and are available to watch on the COMBS YouTube channel.

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Building the next-generation of microcomb researchers with our industry partners

Posted on by Zara Falkiner-Rose

Building the next-generation of microcomb researchers with our industry partners

11 November 2025
Rachael Vorwerk

To set our microcombs on a pathway to real-world application, we need to connect with industry partners.

Our Industry Workshop was truly a day of matchmaking, bringing together our researchers and industry partners to develop PhD projects that embed our PhD students within industry through internships.

We brought together our fundamental physicists, technologists, seismologists, internet infrastructure experts and biomedical imaging experts – and paired them with our industry partners spanning the National Measurement Institute, Australia, DSTG, terra15, MOGLabs, Zabidou and Advanced Navigation.

The result? A room full of exchanged ideas, opportunities and tangible PhD projects to begin in 2026.

We now have five PhD projects that are in the works, giving students the chance to gain hands-on experience within industry through internships.

Read more about Our Partnerships at COMBS

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Developing consistent standards in biomedical imaging for developmental biology and cancer diagnostics

Posted on by Zara Falkiner-Rose

Developing consistent standards in biomedical imaging for developmental biology and cancer diagnostics

3 July 2025
Rachael Vorwerk

Biomedical imaging at high resolution – without needing extra labels that could affect the sample – is a game changer for developmental biology, cancer diagnostics and ophthalmology.

But the field behind this promise – Brillouin microscopy – still lacks standardised practices, making data hard to compare and interpret across studies and different labs.

COMBS researchers Prof Irina Kabakova and Dr Hadi Mahmodi, together with many world-leading Brillouin microscopy specialists, published a consensus statement in Nature Photonics that set out to change that. It’s a major step toward consistency, clinical translation, and real-world impact.

Read the article in Nature Photonics.

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