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About us

The Photon Factory is a multidisciplinary platform that aims to benefit New Zealand and the world either through our own research or by supporting the research of others. We hope to achieve this through advancing medtech, agritech, telecom and manufacturing by blending engineering, physics, chemistry and biology together with the use of light.

Originally started as a research group by Prof Cather Simpson in 2009, the group has evolved into a University of Auckland Platform under Prof Neil Broderick with close ties to Te Whai Ao – Dodd-Walls Centre. We now offer our expertise as a service to assist industry partners and other researchers while still maintaining our own research interests.

Our expertise and instrumentation revolves around the use of light for analysis and/or fabrication. Infra-red and Raman spectroscopy can be used to characterise the compositions of different samples. Microscopes, optical tensiometers and profilometers give us the ability to quantify solid surface properties. Laser micromachining allows us to create novel surface structures or devices, and our microfabrication suite allows us to fabricate microfluidic chips.

This expertise has allowed us to apply novel solutions to a variety of very different projects and our most successful research projects have been commercialised into spin-out companies, including Engender, Orbis Diagnostics and Luminoma.

If you believe our expertise can assist you please do not hesitate to contact us.

Industry

 

The Photon Factory focuses on solving fundamental, applied and entrepreneurial research problems for clients in some of New Zealand’s leading companies.

We are supported by the national Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies working in both New Zealand and Australia.

 

Spinout companies

  

  • Engender
    Engender solves the problem of gender selection in the dairy industry by separating male and female sperm cells using photonics. It was acquired by world-leading animal genetics company CRV in 2018.

 

  • Orbis Diagnostics
    Orbis delivers lab-accurate, point-of-care diagnostics for up to eight tests from a single prick of blood.

Research

 

At the Photon Factory, we’re using photonics to create our future and explain the past.

 

Looking ahead

    • We’re developing tiny lasers for honey bee hives to disable and kill varroa bee mites that put our NZ$401m honey exports at risk. Find out more
    • We’re working with the University of Canterbury to develop platforms for biological research in microgravity for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Find out more
    • Real-time measurement of ischaemic tissue margins in surgery. Find out more

 

Revealing secrets from the past

    • In Jan Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, the same light that makes her lips so red is destroying the red colour. Our research showed how molecules used to make paints have their colour fade from exposure to light.
    • The cross-faculty Beautiful Chemistry Project recreated and analysed popular beauty recipes from Renaissance Europe. As an aside, those beauty ideals – and the marketing promising cures – parallel those of today.

 

We have strong connections with: