Extremely low phase noise microwave oscillators developers recognised

Two internationally acclaimed physicists from The University of Western Australia have clocked up another big award in recognition of their work on precision electromagnetic measurement.

Laureate Fellow Michael Tobar and Winthrop Professor Eugene Ivanov have won the Alan Walsh Medal for Service to Industry from the Australian Institute of Physics. This award recognises their contribution to the development of extremely low phase noise microwave oscillators. The oscillators have been commercialised by the West Australian high-tech company Poseidon Scientific Instruments (acquired by Raytheon Australia) for applications in advanced radar systems.

Professor Tobar’s current work includes engineered quantum systems and highly accurate tests of fundamental physics. He is also known for his contribution to the development of ultrastable cryogenic sapphire oscillators. Such oscillators are used in various metrological laboratories around the world enabling modern atomic clocks to keep time with an unprecedented accuracy, neither losing nor gaining a second in more than 300 million years.

Professor Ivanov is an expert in oscillator frequency control and optical frequency synthesis. In 2010, he received the JF Keithley Award from the American Physical Society acknowledging him as a “physicist who has been instrumental in the development of measurement techniques that have impact on the physics community”.

The Walsh Medal is awarded every two years for physics research and/or development that has led to patents, processes or inventions which, in the opinion of the judging panel, have led to significant industrial and/or commercial outcomes.

The medal commemorates the late Sir Alan Walsh, one of Australia’s most eminent and distinguished scientists, who was the originator and developer of atomic absorption spectrophotometry and pioneered its use as a tool in chemical analysis.