Benjamin Dix-Matthews is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia, working on the stabilisation of free-space optical links for metrology, geodesy and communications. Having previously completed a Masters in Electronic Engineering, he has experience in the technical process of designing, prototyping and testing electrical and optical systems.
Benjamin’s research has focused on leveraging phase-stabilization technology developed at UWA and applying it to ultra-stable optical signal transmissions through the atmosphere for use in high-speed communications, geoscience, and fundamental physics. His work has led to international collaboration with both private and public organisations around the world. His first authored papers include research into cutting-edge techniques for orbitography, optical clock comparisons, and high-speed optical communications.
His most significant publication to date is on the results of an important collaboration with the French space agency, CNES, that was published in Nature Communications. This paper demonstrated the world’s most stable coherent optical transmission through the atmosphere. The transfer stability demonstrated surpassed the world’s best optical atomic clocks, an important step to facilitating world-class optical atomic clock comparisons for applications in chronometric geodesy and fundamental physics.
Project Title: Phase- and spatial-stabilisation system development (Embedded in P1-01)