Cavity Enhanced Spectroscopy (CES) is an international meeting that brings together the community of physicists, chemists, atmospheric scientists, and engineers who conduct research in cavity enhanced spectroscopy and its many applications.
Read moreThe first two (!) articles of 2026 are out
In these articles (published in Analyst and Soft Matter) we worked with Queen’s researchers Carlos Escobedo and Juan Gomez-Cruz on a new chemical sensor using surface plasmon polaritons. Following earlier work by Escobedo’s group we recorded the “extraordinary optical transmission” through a gold film that has a grid of nanometer-sized holes and monitored its change as the refractive index of an attached polymer film changes. the second article describes a new model for 1-dimensional diffusion kinetics based on the exact integration of Fick’s law.
Read moreMeet Victoria's newest PhD - Dr Daxini
Congratulations to Dr Swapnil Daxini, who defended his thesis “Light as a Probe: Harnessing Optical Resonances for Sensing Chemical Diffusion and Mechanical Strain” on December 9th, 2025.
Read moreMonique Bueno wins Poster Award
Monique with her award winning poster at MAF 2025 in Montreal
In week (-2) of her graduate studies Monique Bueno already won an award for her work on Fluorescence Excitation-Emission Matrix Spectroscopy (EEMS) for capillary electrophoresis detection at the 19th International Conference on Methods and Applications in Fluorescence in Montreal.
Congratulations, Monique! We have sky-high expectations for your graduate research..!
Read moreLoockLaserLab at CLEO Europe 2025 (… and CSC 2025, CLEO US 2025)
Emma Abbey attended CLEO Europe in June 2025 to present her work on Hadamard Transform fluorescence EEM Imaging.
Read moreBuild your own Spectroscope!
At Science Rendezvous 2025 Emma and Mackenzie showed you how to build your own spectroscope. Click on the image to download the instructions and a cardboard template.
Read moreLoockLaserLab at CLEO 2025
Emma Abbey presents her work on Fluorescence EEM Imaging at CLEO-2025 in Long Beach. This is the first of two presentations that Emma is going to give this summer. She will travel next to Munich to talk at CLEO-Europe.
Read moreLong-range sound recording using a fiber strain sensor
Sound recording made with pi-shifted Fiber Bragg Grating as strain sensor.
PhD candidates Swapnil Daxini and Arthur Santos (with early contributions by Dr Deniz Aydin) succeeded in recording sound over 75 km of fiber-optic cable. Their work was published in Optics Express in February 2025.
Read moreNew cover article in Analytical Chemistry
Dr Adam Bernicky’s work on neural network analysis of flame emission spectra is published as a cover article. This is one of three articles coming from Adam’s PhD thesis.
Read moreArts-and-Crafts meets Science
Taking a creative break from the lab: Yasi, Monique, Emma, Arthur, Swapnil and Sarah (clockwise)
We love colours in all their forms! Finnerty Gardens is the perfect place for an artistic break to apply our arts-and-crafts skills.
Read moreMeet Dr Bernicky - Canada's newest PhD!
Screenshot of (not yet Dr.) Adam Bernicky’s opening slide
Meet Dr Bernicky - Canada's newest PhD!
To no-one’s surprise Adam Bernicky delivered an absolutely stellar defense of his PhD thesis on the analysis of copper concentrates using a custom-built burner and Artificial Neural Network analysis.
Congratulations from all of us.
Read moreCelestial Optics in Action
Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024 (photo Dr Travis Ferguson)
Celestial Optics in Action
Our Ontario group members had a first row seat to the solar Eclipse on April 8th,
Read moreOpen positions for graduate and undergraduate students in Chemistry or Physics (click here to apply)
Aerial view of the UVic campus
So, you are about to graduate with a B.Sc. in chemistry or physics, and are looking for an exciting research opportunity? Consider applying for one of two graduate student positions in our group! We are a multidisciplinary and diverse team of chemists and physicists, and we are keen to work with you.
Read moreGet Twisted: are TICT states not as common as we think?
The ground and excited state potential energy curves of an organic molecule forming a TICT state
As part of her MSc research Sara Joulaei-Zonouz (UVic, MSc 2023) studied an organic dye molecule that was designed to exhibit an enormous solvatochromic shift from a twisted excited state geometry - these excited states are called Twisted Internal Charge Transfer (TICT) states. While the molecule behaved experimentally as it should (we checked!), Sara found out - through a lot of ab initio calculations - that it does all this without actually forming a TICT state. A real twist in that story..!
Read more at the New Journal of Chemistry.
Read moreTwo (2!) new articles on Hadamard-Transform Fluorescence
For the first time the LaserLab group has had two articles accepted on the same day! Both are in ACS Analytical Chemistry and both are on the use of our fully-programmable, broadband light source for highly multiplexed fluorescence spectroscopy.
Read moreBeach Day 2023
Beach Day 2023
The LaserLab appreciates photons, waves, and silicates in all forms!
Spending a day at the beach in East Sooke Park was a reminder that there is life outside the lab.
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Adam Bernicky co-authors article on neural network analysis of flame emission spectra
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 moreReview article on fiber interferometry published
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 moreMeet Oren the Defender, Master of Lasers
Congratulations 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 moreIt's all just Physics: Bowling Night 2022
Who would have thought that classical trajectory calculations are so hard…!?
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