Scott uses and develops 4D-STEM (scanning nanobeam electron diffraction) and other advanced electron-microscopy modalities, including energy-filtered techniques, to map short-range structural order and local diffraction signatures in quantum and semiconductor materials at the nanoscale.

Tilley directs the UNSW Electron Microscope Unit and runs a nanomaterials group whose distinctive capability is in-situ liquid-cell TEM: watching nanoparticle nucleation, growth and catalytic transformation in real time inside the microscope, in liquid, rather than inferring mechanism from before-and-after snapshots. The synthetic side produces magnetic and plasmonic nanoparticles used as biosensor labels and MRI contrast agents, largely in collaboration with Gooding and Reece. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the group is a supplier and characteriser of the nanoparticle probes that in-cell quantum sensing depends on — including the magnetic-nanoparticle labels whose stray fields a pT/sqrt(Hz) NV sensor would actually detect — and the liquid-cell TEM capability is a rare way to validate what those particles are doing in situ. Borderline inclusion (materials characterisation rather than sensing), kept for the collaborative infrastructure it represents.

Uses MBE thin-film growth combined with equilibrium and non-equilibrium ARPES to sense electronic structure at material interfaces. Directions: (1) non-equilibrium photoemission (tr-ARPES) to map ultrafast electron dynamics in topological and superconducting materials; (2) MBE engineering of interfacial superconductivity and topological orders at oxide and chalcogenide interfaces; (3) light-induced phase transitions probed by ultrafast ARPES as a sensing modality for correlated electron dynamics.

Zheng develops in-situ liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy to directly observe nanocrystal nucleation, growth, and chemical transformation in solution with nanometer spatial and sub-second temporal resolution, capturing dynamic processes invisible to static microscopy.