Congreve engineers excitonic materials -- perovskite nanocrystals and molecular sensitizer/annihilator pairs -- for photon upconversion, light emission, and sensing applications, with interests extending toward quantum-technology-relevant nanoscale light-matter devices. [Borderline match: materials/energy focus with a sensing angle rather than a core quantum-sensing program; kept for review.]
Goldys was Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics and now leads a nanoscale biophotonics group in Biomedical Engineering. The programme is about extracting diagnostic information from very weak optical signals inside cells and tissue: luminescent and upconverting nanoparticle probes with long lifetimes that allow time-gated, background-free detection; hyperspectral unmixing of native cellular autofluorescence (NADH, FAD, porphyrins) as a completely label-free readout of cell state, which she has pushed toward clinical use in reproductive medicine and cancer; and nanoparticle-mediated therapy. 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 — time-gated luminescence and NV relaxometry are two solutions to the same problem — how to read a faint, specific signal out of an autofluorescent, optically hostile biological background — and her clinical translation experience is exactly the missing capability in most quantum-biosensing groups. Preferred attribute present: advanced/label-based imaging with a genuine human-application pathway.
Mulvaney directs the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science and runs Melbourne's nanoscience laboratory. The group's distinctive capability is single-particle and single-emitter optical spectroscopy: photon-antibunching and blinking statistics from individual quantum dots and perovskite nanocrystals, photothermal and dark-field spectroscopy of individual metal nanoparticles, and the electrochemical control of single-nanocrystal charge state. Applications run from LEDs and solar cells to quantum-dot probes for single-particle tracking in cells. 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 — his single-emitter photon-statistics measurements share the shot-noise-limited photon-counting methodology of NV-ensemble ODMR readout, and the group's nanocrystal probes are direct competitors/complements to nanodiamond in cellular sensing. Large, well-resourced group.