Professor Christopher Vale

Biography

Education:
BSc (Hons) and PhD in Physics (2001), Victoria University, Australia.

Employment:
2000 - 2002: Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Sussex, UK
2003 - 2006: Research Fellow, University of Queensland, Australia
2007 – : Senior Research Fellow, Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, Professor Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Current Activities:
My research lies in the broad area of experiments with ultracold atoms, both bosons and fermions. I began in this area looking at Bose-Einstein condensates on atom chips, both at the Univesity of Sussex, UK, and the University of Queensland. In 2007 I moved to Swinburne and began working on ultracold Fermi gases of lithium-6 atoms with tunable interactions near a Feshbach resonance. Much of our work has focussed on precise measurements of the excitation spectra of strongly correlated fermions using Bragg spectroscopy to investigate pairing and universal phenomeno. We have also investigated Fermi gases in the dimensional crossover from 2D-3D near a Feshbach resonance. Recently, we have commenced setting up a new expeirment to prepare ultracold gases of dysprosium atoms with long range dipolar interactions that can be imaged under a high resolution optical microscope. Our aim is to perform precision tests of many-body physics and explore new states of matter that become possible in gases of atoms with long-range interactions. We are part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET) where we investigate concepts in non-equilibrium and topological phenomena in cold atoms, that may find application in 2D materials.

I currently teach into the Thermal Physics and Statistical Mechanics (PHY30003) and Quantum and Optical Physics (PHY30004) courses. I also supervise a number of research students at the PhD, MSc, Honours and Undergraduate level. Please see our group webpage or contact me directly if you are interested in opportunities within our group.