PIs

Professor, Head of School, University of Melbourne 🔗
Status: unreviewed revisit date: None Application status: none LOR status: not_needed
Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics | Quiney Theoretical Imaging and Structural Physics Group @ UMelb
Summary:

Quiney (currently Head of School) is a theorist of coherent imaging and relativistic atomic structure. His signature contribution is the theory of X-ray free-electron-laser imaging of single particles, including the modelling of radiation damage and ionisation dynamics during the pulse — the question of whether you can extract structure faster than you destroy it — plus phase-retrieval algorithms for coherent diffractive imaging and ptychography. He also works on relativistic quantum chemistry and atomic structure. 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 connection is methodological rather than physical: his group develops the inverse-problem and photon-budget theory that governs how much information can be pulled out of a shot-noise-limited measurement, which is the same limit that fixes pT/sqrt(Hz) performance in NV ensembles. Theory-first PI with strong coupling to experimental synchrotron/XFEL programmes.

Created at: July 12, 2026, 1:02 a.m. Updated at: July 12, 2026, 1:02 a.m. Metadata: Fresh 2026-07-11. Primary lab: theoretical imaging and structural physics, School of Physics; currently Head of School, which constrains bandwidth.