Chris is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice President (Research & Innovation) and Professor of Physics. He has previously held the positions of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Graduate and Global Research), Dean of Graduate Studies, and Associate Dean (Research, Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering) at La Trobe.

Chris' research focuses on engineering diamond surfaces for quantum electronics, including the development of devices for spin transport and quantum computation. He leads the Diamond Research Group that uses a combination of synchrotron spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, device fabrication and magnetotransport.

Diamond Research Group members and current projects:
Dr Alex Schenk
Gokulakrishnan Kumar (PhD): Atom-scale engineering on diamond surfaces


Group Alumni:
Dr Rebecca Griffin (PhD), moved to Brant Gibson's group at RMIT.
Dr Yi-Ying Sung (Moved to Quantum Brilliance GmbH, Germany)
Dr Golrokh Akhgar (PhD), moved to Mark Edmonds' group at Monash University.
Dr Steve Yianni (PhD), moved to dirac Pty Ltd at UNSW.
Dr Manjith Bose (PhD), moved to Jeff McCallum's group at University of Melbourne.
Michael Sear (PhD): Surface engineering of (100) diamond
Emily Groves (Masters): STM imaging of silicon terminated (100) diamond
Brian Oslinker (Honours), continuing PhD at La Trobe University.
Dr Kaijian Xing (PhD), moved to Monash University.
Dr Alex Schenk (PhD), moved to Justin Wells' group at NTNU, Norway.
Dr Kevin Rietwyk (PhD), moved to Arie Zaban's group at Bar Ilan University, Israel and Marie Curie fellowship.
Dr Giuseppe Tettamanzi (PhD), moved to Sven Rogge's group at Kavli Institute of Nanoscience TU Delft, then ARC DECRA fellowship at UNSW.
Dr Mark Edmonds (PhD), moved to Michael Fuhrer's group at Monash University and ARC DECRA fellowship.
Dr Yaou Smets (PhD), moved to a consultancy job at Capgemini Australia and then Capgemini in UK.
Dr Christian Stark (PhD), moved to IT consultancy role in Germany.
Dr Fadhlia Zakaria (PhD), Postdoc position at UPNM, Malaysia.

Atomlab facilities and Instrumentation:

The group uses a combination of experimental techniques, predominantly synchrotron-based photoemission (soft X-ray spectroscopy at the Australian Synchrotron and AR-PES at BESSY), UHV scanning probe microscopy, surface and device transport measurements. The Atomlab houses and manages the following key facilities:

Createc cryogenic (6 Kelvin) UHV Scanning Tunnelling Microscope/qPlus Atomic Force Microscope with in-situ instrumentation for molecular dosing and passivation of surfaces and LEED.
SPECS Aarhus UHV Scanning Tunnelling Microscope with in-situ molecular dosing and LEED.
Oxford Instruments Teslatron
JEOL 4500 UHV scanning probe microscope with XPS, Auger, SEM and instrumentation for molecular dosing.
Cryomech helium liquifier. Microwave hydrogen plasma system for passivation of diamond surfaces.