Over the last two decades Winthrop Professors Eugene Ivanov and Michael Tobar, leaders of
the frequency standards and metrology research group at The University of Western Australia
have invented new technologies based on microwave circuit and sapphire dielectric resonator
technology, which have led to their development of the world's lowest noise oscillators. When
you have a loud signal amongst all your electronics, that generates all this extra noise which
gets in the way of your pure signal. A rather simple idea, what if we, like put in front
of this particular component, something else. When we built the device and we turned it
on, it worked straight away. We could see that the noise was really low; you could easily
show that this was the world record. Their range of inventions have been purchased for
multiple applications from fundamental research, meteorology, high-tech communications and
defence. I met Eugene in Moscow, I realised that he had the most detailed knowledge and
understanding, immediately I said - hey Eugene, what would you think about coming to Australia?
Well, my background was microwaves and when I came here I discovered that Michael was
involved in similar research. Eugene and I were working on the gravitational wave detector
and the test gravitational wave detector used an interfermometer in a different way than we now
use in the oscillator so the light bulb moment came when it was realised that this interferometer
could be used in the oscillators to create pure signals. The professors' research projects
which began in the early 1990's was supported by technology company Poseidon Scientific
Instruments PTY LTD (PSI) with the help of eight collaborative research grants from the
Australian Research Council to the value of $5 million. We realised that the sapphire
oscillators could be fantastically useful and we then got in contact with people like
Jesse Searls, at Poseidon Scientific Instruments, who was interested in making the best radars.
If you have good radar, it means that potentially your plane can see so-called clear air turbulence
and pilots can avoid falling into this type of trap. Along with their world leading low-noise
oscillation technology, Ivanov and Tobar's research has resulted in other breakthroughs
including the invention of microwave oscillators with interferometric signal processing phase noise performance
more than one thousand times better than what could be achieved previously. Some of my colleagues,
they came up with the idea of dielectric resonators so instead of metal devices they
decided to trap microwaves in a crystal. The discovery of frequency temperature compensation
effect in isotropic resonators and the construction of the first ultra-stable oscillators that
do not require cooling. Mike and Eugene are both first-rate scientists, I mean they're
first-rate physicists recognised in this field around the world. Their technology used by
PSI under licence by UWA have generated more than $30 million in sales for the company.
The crystal sapphire technology and the low-noise oscillators have been probably one of the
best commercialisation successes out of Western Australia and The University of Western Australia.
The portfolio of Ivanov and Tobar's inventions plus the rights to the technology was ultimately
acquired by Raytheon in 2012 to complement their existing suite of world leading technology
and defence capabilities. The University over the last ten years has had something like,
probably seven ARC linkage projects which are projects based on the technology between
the company and the University, that's also part of the commercialisation effort that
Eugene and Mike have contributed to. Their dedication to their research, products and
partners saw them always available for consultation during manufacturing processes. We keep using
this technology extensively in our lab because precision measurements, it's something people
start paying attention to recently worldwide. An ongoing research team, Ivanov and Tobar
have remained partners over multiple projects and years, demonstrating a remarkable effort
in research and innovation proving their high-level of scientific and personal persistence.