Rate My Professor Peter Reece

Associate Professor Peter Reece serves in the Department of Condensed Matter Physics within the School of Physics at the University of New South Wales. He earned a BSc with First Class Honours in Medical Physics in 1998 and a PhD in Physics in 2005, both from UNSW. His research focuses on experimental optical spectroscopy and microscopy techniques applied to photonic and optoelectronic materials and devices. Specific areas of expertise encompass optical trapping and micromanipulation of nanoparticles and nanowires, nanoscale quantum sensing with nanodiamonds, plasmonics-based optical biosensing and imaging, silicon nanophotonics and microphotonics, optical properties of semiconductor materials and devices, imaging and sensing through multimode optical fibres, and thermoradiative power generation. Reece directs the Photonics and Optoelectronics Laboratory, overseeing diverse projects such as optically trapped nanodiamonds for nanoscale magnetic resonance sensing in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, optical trapping of resonantly scattering nanoparticles for photonic force probes, rapid isolation and analysis of circulating exosomes using label-free nanoplasmonic sensors for breast cancer diagnosis with UNSW St George Clinical School, ultrafast spectroscopy of Group III-V quantum heterostructures with the School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering, imaging through multimode optical fibres for miniature endoscopes, nanostructured silicon-based optical metamaterials, and investigations into sub-diffusion and stochastic resonances in optical trapping with the School of Mathematics.

In addition to his research leadership, Reece holds the role of Director of Teaching in Physics and serves as the presiding member of the UNSW Radiation Safety Committee and academic representative on the School of Physics Health and Safety Committee. His scholarly contributions include publications in prestigious journals such as Nature Photonics, with recent works including 'Semiconductor thermoradiative power conversion' (2024), 'Sub-femtonewton force sensing in solution by super-resolved photonic force microscopy' (2024), and 'Temperature-dependent power generation from HgCdTe and III-V thermoradiative diodes' (2025). He has also co-authored chapters on near-field optical micromanipulation, such as 'Near-Field Optical Micromanipulation' in Structured Light and Its Applications (2008).