We are a group of inventors building instruments for analytical spectroscopy, imaging, and sensing
Neural Network Analysis
Flame emission spectra of metals are a common chemistry demonstration; Adam Bernicky takes this to the next level by employing neural network analysis for the spectral decomposition of the flame emission from crushed copper ore concentrates.
Read more
Everything you ever wanted to know about measuring refractive indices with optical fibres! Did you know that there were over 1000 papers published on that topic in the last 15 years? We read them all!
The review article introduces common performance metrics for these sensors, compares and ranks the many different designs, and then provides guidelines for building better refractive index sensors.
This was a major portion of Deniz’ PhD thesis and a huge tour-de-force!
Applied Physics Reviews 10, 011307 (2023);
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0105147
Read moreCongratulations to Oren Katz for crushing his M.Sc defense and becoming the latest alumnus of our group. Thank you to examiners Dennis Hore and Reuven Gordon who shared their insights into Oren’s work on five-dimensional Hadamard-Transform fluorescence imaging.
Read more
Who would have thought that classical trajectory calculations are so hard…!?
Read more
We are hiring!
Our group has two open Postdoctoral Fellow positions in fiber optic sensing and multiplexed fluorescence spectroscopy. Please click on the link to learn more.
Read moreThe celebration in Kingston following Dr Amy MacLean’s successful PhD defense.
Read more
Congratulations to Dr. Deniz Aydin for successfully defending her PhD thesis:!
Read moreThe M.Sc. work by Emily Groper has been published as a cover article in the RSC journal Analyst. Emily was working with former UG student Rory McEwen and collaborators at Laval University to develop a multi-channel emitter for electrospray ionization.
Read moreOur new photonics lab is ready for moving in!
We are looking to hire undergraduate project students for September 2021 (yes, you will be working in that lab, and not remotely!)
We are always hiring graduate students!
Write to hploock@uvic.ca if you consider applying..
Read more
These five scientists had a brilliant idea on how to simultaneously record 2D fluorescence spectra and absorption spectra.. Optical measurements of chemical kinetics would never be the same again. They demonstrated and patented this new spectroscopic technique.
You would not believe what happened next!
Read moreUnpacking boxes is fun - but it is more fun if you don’t know what is inside and you don’t have over 50 of them…! After many days of unwrapping our equipment we started setting up the first experiment at UVic and Deniz was able to obtain a signal with our fiber-optic vibration probe and test equipment. Now we just need an earthquake (no, not really)
Read moreOn May 7, 2020 and under the most adverse circumstances. Adam Bernicky successfully defended his M.Sc thesis on Hadamard Transform Fluorescence EEM spectroscopy!
All examiners were connected through teleconferencing software since the pandemic would not allow us to hold a defense face-to-face. Examiners were in two different timezones and covered a vast range of topics, yet Adam delivered a masterclass on how to excel in an M.Sc. defense.. Congratulations, Adam!
Read moreThank you to Dr. Gianluca Gagliardi and his group for welcoming Deniz and Peter to a 3-week stay in his lab to study brightly glowing liquid droplets! Our trip to the CNR – Istituto Nazionale di Ottica in Pozzuoli, Italy, included visits to Pompeii and Capri, lots of pizza, the best seafood on the planet, and some of the most “intense” traffic imaginable. Oh, and really awesome science, of course.
Read moreAlmost the entire lab was boxed up and shipped across the country.
After 21 years at Queen’s University, Loock Laser Lab moves to the University of Victoria. For Peter it is wonderful (and weird) to return to the university where he graduated in 1996. The rest of the group is apprehensive. Are Victorians friendly? How is the new space? Can we afford living there? Only time will tell. But first we need to unpack a huge number of boxes..!
Read moreGraduate Student Adam Bernicky holding the selfie stick at an authentic Bulgarian BBQ with collaborators from Aurubis, KPM, and Universidad de Concepción.
Read moreLoock Laser Lab jocks and jockettes assemble during the 2019 CCCE conference in Quebec City, Quebec.
Read more
The Loock Laser Lab booth made another appearance at the annual Science Rendezvous Kingston on May 11, 2019. This year’s display featured our laser fountain, vanishing beads, a ‘stealth’ computer screen, and the ever-popular blue laser! A big thanks to the many volunteers who helped make this event a success.
More photos are available in our gallery here.
Read more
Who wore it better?
Adam Pejic defended his research thesis “Flow-through plasmonic sensing, based on Silicone-coated nanohole arrays” on April 25, 2019. Adam’s work was co-supervised by Carlos Escobedo (CHEE) and resulted in a close collaboration with members of the Escobedo Group. Adam is a visiting student from Frankfurt, Germany and the research project will count towards his German M.Sc. degree.
Read more
Our group has joined a multidisciplinary team of researchers in the departments of Chemistry, Physics and Chemical Engineering to provide the best education to graduate students in the fields of Materials for Advanced Photonics and Sensing, MAPS. Funded through the CREATE program of NSERC our collaboration was awarded $1.6M to provide the interdisciplinary training and optical and material sciences. Please click on the link to the CREATE-MAPS site to learn more.
Read more
In our latest cover aarticle in Adv. Sus. Sys Hao Chen, John Saunders, Sogol Borjian and Xiaowei Wu were coating microphotonic tandem ring resonators with tetrasulfide‐functionalized mesoporous silica films to create remarkably sensitive and specific sensors for lead, Pb(II) in water.
Read more
Quisque iaculis facilisis lacinia. Mauris euismod pellentesque tellus sit amet mollis.