Martin O'Connor

Associate Professor Martin O'Connor

Grant-Funded Researcher (D)

School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences

Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology

Associate Professor Martin O'Connor is the Defence Technologies Theme Leader at the Institute of Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS). He has 25 years R&D experience in lasers, optics and nonlinear optics across academic, government and industry settings. At the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Martin designed and developed solid-state lasers for laser radar and active imaging applications. He was awarded the George Murray Research Fellowship (University of Adelaide) and spent 6 years at the Optoelectronic Research Centre (Southampton, UK) where his interests combined the power scaling of ultrashort fibre laser amplifiers and the broad-tunability of quasi-phase matched nonlinear processes. Martin’s most recent experience was 11 years at BAE Systems Australia as Team Leader of the Electro-optic Engineering group. In this role, he provided technical and team leadership for the design, prototyping and manufacture of laser and optical systems that were deployed on naval and air platforms as well as thermal imaging systems for naval and land customers. Currently, Martin is coordinating the commercialisation of technology at the University of Adelaide such as the Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillator as well as building research activities in Optical Sensors for small satellites and infrared laser and imaging systems.

Research Interests:
  • Ultra-stable microwave and optical frequency references ("The Sapphire Clock")
  • RF photonics links
  • Optical Sensors for Small Satellites: Telescopes, Comms and Hyperspectral Imagers
  • Optical frequency conversion
  • Infrared imaging exploiting deep learning algorithms.
  • Infrared lasers and imaging sensors
  • Interest is Quantum-enhanced Imaging

  • Appointments
    Date Position Institution name
    2016 - ongoing Associate Professor University of Adelaide
    2005 - 2016 Team Leader, Electro-Optic Engineering (Principal EO Engineer) BAE Systems Australia
    2004 - 2005 Electro-Optics Consultant Stratophase (University of Southampton start-up)
    2000 - 2005 Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow University of Southampton
    1997 - 2000 Research Scientist Defence Science and Technology Organisation

  • Awards and Achievements
    Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount
    2018 Award Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia Australian Museum/DSTG Australia 10000
    2003 Award Royal Society Travel Grant - - -
    2000 Fellowship George Murray Research Fellowship, University of Adelaide - - -
    1992 Scholarship Australian Postgraduate Research Award - - -
    1991 Award David Sutton Award for Most Outstanding (Dux) Honours Research, Physics Department, The University of Adelaide - - -
    1990 Scholarship Commonwealth Science and Industry Research Organisation (CSIRO) Scholarship - - -
    1989 Scholarship Vacation Scholarship, Physics Department, University of Adelaide - - -

  • Education
    Date Institution name Country Title
    1997 University of Adelaide Australia Ph.D. by research in Lasers and Nonlinear Optics
    1995 University of South Australia Australia Graduate Diploma in Business Management
    1991 University of Adelaide Australia Bachelor of Science (with 1st Class Honours) in Experimental and Theoretical Physics

  • Research Interests
    Classical and Physical Optics Lasers and Quantum Electronics Nonlinear Optics and Spectroscopy Optical Physics Optical Technology Optics

  • Journals
    Year Citation
    2005 Ming, L., Gawith, C. B. E., Gallo, K., O'Connor, M. V., Emmerson, G. D., & Smith, P. G. R. (2005). High conversion efficiency single-pass second harmonic generation in a zinc-diffused periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide. Optics Express, 13(13), 4862-4868.
    DOI Scopus36
    2005 Naz, N. A., Hung, H. S. S., O’connor, M. V., Hanna, D. C., & Shepherd, D. P. (2005). Adaptively shaped mid-infrared pulses from a synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator. Optics Express, 13(21), 8400-8405.
    DOI Scopus14
    2004 O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2004). Use of a birefringent filter for tuning a synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator. Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics, 79(1), 15-23.
    DOI Scopus7
    2003 Watson, M. A., O'Connor, M. V., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2003). Synchronously pumped CdSe optical parametric oscillator in the 9-10 μm region. Optics Letters, 28(20), 1957-1959.
    DOI Scopus47 Europe PMC6
    2002 O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., Shepherd, D. P., Hanna, D. C., Price, J. H. V., Malinowski, A., . . . Lefort, L. (2002). Synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator driven by a femtosecond mode-locked fiber laser. Optics Letters, 27(12), 1052-1054.
    DOI Scopus36
    2002 Watson, M. A., O'Connor, M. V., Lloyd, P. S., Shepherd, D. P., Hanna, D. C., Gawith, C. B. E., . . . Balachninaite, O. (2002). Extended operation of synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillators to longer idler wavelengths. Optics Letters, 27(23), 2106-2108.
    DOI Scopus26
    2001 Hanna, D. C., O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., & Shepherd, D. P. (2001). Synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator with diffraction-grating tuning. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 34(16), 2440-2454.
    DOI Scopus39
    1995 Devrelis, V., O'Connor, M., & Munch, J. (1995). Coherence length of single laser pulses as measured by CCD interferometry. Applied Optics, 34(24), 5386-5389.
    DOI Scopus13 WoS10 Europe PMC1

  • Conference Papers
    Year Citation
    2007 Monro, T., & Afshar Vahid, S. (2007). Receiver Protection Using Novel Nonlinear Optical Fibres. In Joint Strike Fighter Conference (pp. 0 pages). Melbourne, Australia.
    2005 Smith, P. G. R., Ming, L., O'Connor., & Gawith, C. B. E. (2005). Zinc diffused lithium niobate waveguides for high conversion efficiency second harmonic generation. In Lithium Niobate Workshop. Metz, France.
    2005 Naz, N. A., O'Connor, M. V., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2005). An intelligent, synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator using adaptive pulse-shaping techniques. In 2005 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, CLEO Vol. 3 (pp. 1841-1843). IEEE.
    DOI
    2004 Connor, M. V. O., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2004). Femtosecond optical parametric oscillators: A practical approach for power scaling tunable sources. In J. A. C. Terry, & W. A. Clarkson (Eds.), Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering Vol. 5620 (pp. 77-83). SPIE.
    DOI
    2003 Lloyd, P. S., O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., Thomson, B. C., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2003). Pulse shaping in an optical parametric oscillator with fibre feedback. In Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe - Technical Digest (pp. 246). IEEE.
    DOI Scopus1
    2003 Watson, M. A., O'Connor, M. V., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2003). Synchronously pumped, mid-infrared CdSe optical parametric oscillator. In Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe - Technical Digest (pp. 284). IEEE.
    DOI
    2003 O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2003). Tuning of a synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator via a four-plate birefringent filter. In Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe - Technical Digest (pp. 274). IEEE.
    DOI
    2002 Watson, M. A., O'Connor, M. V., Lloyd, P. S., Balachninaite, O., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2002). Long-wavelength operation of synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillators based on periodically poled LiNbO<inf>3</inf>. In Pacific Rim Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, CLEO - Technical Digest (pp. 321).
    Scopus1
    2002 Watson, M. A., O'Connor, M. V., Lloyd, P. S., Balachninaite, O., Shepherd, D. P., & Hanna, D. C. (2002). Long-wavelength Operation of Synchronously Pumped Optical Parametric Oscillators Based on Periodically Poled UNbO<inf>3</inf>. In Optics InfoBase Conference Papers.
    2001 Watson, M. A., O'Connor, M. V., Hanna, D. C., & Shepherd, U. P. (2001). Diffraction grating tuning of a high power, synchronously pumped PPLN OPO. In Optics InfoBase Conference Papers.
    2001 O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., Hanna, D. C., Shepherd, D. P., Lefort, L., Price, J. H. V., . . . Richardson, D. J. (2001). Fibre-laser-pumped femtosecond PPLN optical parametric oscillator. In Conference Proceedings - Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Annual Meeting-LEOS Vol. 2 (pp. 756-757).
    2001 Watson, M. A., O'Connor, M. V., Hanna, D. C., & Shepherd, D. P. (2001). Diffraction grating tuning of a high power, synchronously pumped PPLN OPO. In Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe - Technical Digest (pp. 446-447). IEEE.
    DOI
    2001 O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., Hanna, D. C., Shepherd, D. P., Lefort, L., Price, J. H. V., . . . Richardson, D. J. (2001). Fibre-laser-pumped femtosecond PPLN OPO. In Conference Proceedings. Glasgow, Scotland.
    2001 O'Connor, M. V., Watson, M. A., Hanna, D. C., & Shepherd, D. P. (2001). Agile tuning of a synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator using a diffraction grating. In Conference Proceedings. Munich, Germany.
    1998 O'Connor, M. V. (1998). Small Underwater Range-finder. In Workship Proceedings. DSTO Adelaide, Australia.
    1997 Devrelis, V., O'Connor, M., Munch, J., Afshar V, S., & Wei, C. -J. (1997). Experimental investigation for the reduction of intensity and phase instabilities in stimulated Brillouin scattering. In Conference Proceedings. Adelaide, Australia.
    1996 Devrelis, V., O'Connor, M., Munch, J., Afshar V, S., Wei, C. -J., & Grisogono, A. M. (1996). Fidelity of Optical phase conjugation using stimulated Brillouin scattering. In Conference Proceedings. Sydney, Australia.
    1995 O'Connor, M. V., Devrelis, V., & Munch, J. (1995). Phase conjugated Nd:YAG laser oscillator with Stimulated Brillouin Scattering. In Conference Proceedings. Charleston, United States.
    1995 O'Connor, M. V., & Munch, J. (1995). Phase Conjugated Nd:YAG laser oscillator with SBS. In Conference Proceedings. Brisbane, Australia.
    1993 O'Connor, M. V., & Devrelis, V. (1993). Phase Conjugation of solid state lasers. In Conference Proceedings. Melbourne, Australia.
    1993 O'Connor, M. V., Devrelis, V., & Munch, J. (1993). Optical Phase Conjugated Mirrors for solid state lasers. In Conference Proceedings. Sydney, Australia.
Research Grants Awarded:
  • D.C. Hanna, D.P Shepherd, M.V. O’Connor, “Intelligent Light Sources”, EPSRC GR/S47359/01, £200k
  • D.P. Shepherd, D.J. Richardson, M.V. O’Connor, “Adaptive Control of High-Power Femtosecond Pulse Propagation in Optical Fibres”, EPSRC EP/C002199/1, £295k
  • D.P. Shepherd, J.G. Frey, D.C. Hanna, M.V. O’Connor, “Intelligent Mid-Infrared Light Sources: Towards Coherent Control of Molecular Vibrational Motion”, EPSRC GR/T25590/01 , £55k
  • D.P. Shepherd, J.G. Frey, D.C. Hanna, D.J. Richardson, M.V. O’Connor “An Intelligent Mid-Infrared Femtosecond Pulse Generator”, EPSRC Instrument Fund EP/C009479/1, £612k

  • Committee Memberships
    Date Role Committee Institution Country
    2015 - 2016 Co-Chair SA Photonics Roadmap Steering Group - -
  • Position: Grant-Funded Researcher (D)
  • Phone: 83139238
  • Email: martin.oconnor@adelaide.edu.au
  • Fax: 83134380
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: The Braggs, floor 1
  • Org Unit: Physics
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