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B.E Electrical (Hons) Tim was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, and relocated to Brisbane with his family in 2001. In High-school, his ability to quickly comprehend maths and science persuaded him into an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at QUT. During the final year of Tim’s electrical engineering degree, a final year project was offered in exploring the nature of superconductivity and its adaptability into RF systems. Thanks to this final year opportunity, Tim would have never found a passion for superconducting electronics. Tim is currently 2+ years into his PhD investigating the adaption of superconducting nonlinear electronics into microwave/RF systems. The start of his journey was somewhat tricky as the complex fields of superconductivity and microwave theory was briefly explored prior. At this current point of time, Tim is confident in his ability to apply superconducting and microwave knowledge into practical applications such as Quantum Communication, Quantum Sensing or Quantum Computing.
Principal Supervisor: A/Prof Richard Taylor
Associate Supervisor: Dr Jacob Coetzee and Dr Dhammika Jayalath (Mentoring Supervisor)
PhD Overview
This project involves the application and optimisation of Josephson junctions as microwave frequency mixers. Using a Josephson junction as a frequency mixer enable engineers to take advantage of intrinsic superconducting benefits. These benefits include ultra-low noise that enables the lowest noise floor theoretically possible and low power consumption which is 10 times lower than current silicon-based mixers. Application such as radar, wireless communication and long-range space commination can benefit greatly by implementing high-temperature superconducting Josephson junctions (HTS-JJs) instead of a silicon alternative. Thus, this project aims to investigate possible techniques to further improve HTS-JJ as microwave frequency mixers in the hopes of realising the commercialisation of quantum technology.
