I am a physicist (originally astrophysist) currently working as a Research Fellow at Imperial College London in the Department of Materials, where I conduct research into room-temperature masers / quantum materials and lecture in mathematics.

I worked in the space industry for a fair few years – designing passive microwave equipment for spacecraft payloads – until I returned to academia to do a PhD in materials physics.

My PhD focussed on microwave absorption in metal-oxides, using density functional theory to predict phonon dispersion and anharmonic phonon-phonon interactions. These results were fed into a quantum field theory of anharmonic phonons and compared (successfully) to measured properties of real metal-oxide crystals.

My main research interests are electro-magnetics, materials physics, numerical modeling, spin-physics and cavity quantum electrodynamics.

I am co-inventor of the room-temperature solid-state maser and have recently been dedicating my time to improving the devices through better understanding of the spin-physics and electro-magnetic design. Our maser research team is very interdisciplinary – combining the efforts of physicists, chemists and engineers.

As well as getting stuck into mathematics on the theory side, my industrial experience means that I am also quite handy at conducting experiments. I use code to enhance my efforts in both – from parallel high performance and GPU computing to writing drivers for instrumentation.

I mostly use C/C++, Python and Julia for these purposes, but also code in JavaScript (HTML and Node.js), Perl, and Fortran. Back in the day I coded in machine-code/assembler (Z80, 6502, 68000), but those days are past.

Imperial College Personal Web Page

This blog is my attempt to open-source some of the stuff that is either laying dormant on my computer, scribbled on some paper or is sloshing about in my head.

If you are interested in my work or have questions or comments, I can be contacted at

jonbreeze [at] gmail [dot] com

Books

Temperature and Frequency Dependence of Complex Permittivity in Metal Oxide Dielectrics
Breeze J, Publisher: Springer, ISBN: 9783319445458 (2016)

Selected Journal Papers

Room-temperature cavity quantum electrodynamics with strongly coupled Dicke states
Breeze JD, Salvadori E, Sathian J, Alford N.McN. & Kay CWM, npj Quantum Information 3, 40 (2017)

Nanosecond time-resolved characterization of a pentacene-based room-temperature MASER
Salvadori E, Breeze JD, Tan K-J, Sathian J, Richards B, Fung MW, Wolfowicz G, Oxborrow M, Alford NM, Kay CWM, Scientific Reports 7 (2017)

Solid-state source of intense yellow light based on a Ce:YAG luminescent concentrator
Sathian J, Breeze JD, Richards B, Alford NM, Oxborrow M, Optics Express 25, Pages: 13714-13727 (2017)

Molecular Design of a Room-Temperature Maser
Bogatko S, Haynes PD, Sathian J, Wade J, Kim J-S, Tan K-J, Breeze J, Salvadori E, Horsfield A, Oxborrow M, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C, 120, Pages: 8251-8260, (2016)

Enhanced magnetic Purcell effect in room-temperature masers
Breeze J, Tan K-J, Richards B, Sathian J, Oxborrow M, Alford N, Nature Communications 6, (2015)

The rectenna device: From theory to practice (a review)
Donchev E, Pang JS, Gammon PM, Centeno A, Xie F, Petrov PK, Breeze JD, Ryan MP, Riley DJ, Alford NMet al., MRS Energy & Sustainability, Vol: 1, (2014)

Spectroscopic ellipsometry as an optical probe of strain evolution in ferroelectric thin films
Lei DY, Kena-Cohen S, Zou B, Petrov PK, Sonnefraud Y, Breeze J, Maier SA, Alford NMet al., OPTICS EXPRESS, Vol: 20, Pages: 4419-4427, (2012)

Room-temperature solid-state maser
Oxborrow M, Breeze JD, Alford NM, 2012, NATURE, Vol: 488, Pages: 353-+, ISSN: 0028-0836

Better than Bragg: Optimizing the quality factor of resonators with aperiodic dielectric reflectors
Breeze J, Oxborrow M, Alford NM, 2011, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, Vol: 99, ISSN: 0003-6951

Scattering of light into silicon by spherical and hemispherical silver nanoparticles
Centeno A, Breeze J, Ahmed B, Reehal H, Alford Net al., 2010, OPTICS LETTERS, Vol: 35, Pages: 76-78, ISSN: 0146-9592

Intrinsic Microwave Dielectric Loss of Lanthanum Aluminate
Shimada T, Ichikawa K, Minemura T, Yamauchi H, Utsumi W, Ishii Y, Breeze J, Alford NMet al., 2010, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS FERROELECTRICS AND FREQUENCY CONTROL, Vol: 57, Pages: 2243-2249, ISSN: 0885-3010

Temperature-stable and high Q-factor TiO2 Bragg reflector resonator
Breeze J, Krupka J, Centeno A, Alford NMet al., 2009, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, Vol: 94, ISSN: 0003-6951

Do Grain Boundaries Affect Microwave Dielectric Loss in Oxides?
Breeze JD, Perkins JM, McComb DW, Alford NMet al., 2009, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY, Vol: 92, Pages: 671-674, ISSN: 0002-7820

Enhanced quality factors in aperiodic reflector resonators
Breeze J, Krupka J, Alford NM, 2007, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, Vol: 91, ISSN: 0003-6951

Quasi-classical fluctuation-dissipation description of dielectric loss in oxides with implications for quantum information processing
Dunne LJ, Axelsson AK, Alford NM, Breeze J, Aupi X, Brandas EJet al., 2006, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUANTUM CHEMISTRY, Vol: 106, Pages: 986-993, ISSN: 0020-7608

Measurements of permittivity, dieletric loss tangent, and resistivity of float-zone silicon at microwave frequencies
Krupka J, Breeze J, Centeno A, Alford N, Claussen T, Jensen Let al., 2006, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, Vol: 54, Pages: 3995-4001, ISSN: 0018-9480

Characterization and microwave dielectric properties of M2+Nb2O6 ceramics
Pullar RC, Breeze JD, Alford NM, 2005, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY, Vol: 88, Pages: 2466-2471, ISSN: 0002-7820

Microwave dielectric loss in oxides: Theory and experiment
Aupi X, Breeze J, Ljepojevic N, Dunne LJ, Malde N, Axelsson AK, Alford NMet al., 2004, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, Vol: 95, Pages: 2639-2645, ISSN: 0021-8979

Piezoelectrically tuned dielectric resonators
Alford NM, Petrov PK, Breeze J, Sarma KSet al., 2002, ELECTRONICS LETTERS, Vol: 38, Pages: 855-857, ISSN: 0013-5194

Ultralow loss polycrystalline alumina
Breeze JD, Aupi X, Alford NM, 2002, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, Vol: 81, Pages: 5021-5023, ISSN: 0003-6951

Raman spectroscopic study of gallium-doped Ba(Zn1/3Ta2/3)O-3
Webb SJ, Breeze J, Scott RI, Cannell DS, Iddles DM, Alford NMet al., 2002, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY, Vol: 85, Pages: 1753-1756, ISSN: 0002-7820

On the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency in microwave dielectrics
Reaney IM, Wise P, Ubic R, Breeze J, Alford NM, Iddles D, Cannell D, Price Tet al., 2001, PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE A-PHYSICS OF CONDENSED MATTER STRUCTURE DEFECTS AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES, Vol: 81, Pages: 501-510, ISSN: 0141-8610

Layered Al2O3-TiO2 composite dielectric resonators with tuneable temperature coefficient for microwave applications
Alford NM, Breeze J, Penn SJ, Poole Met al., 2000, IEE Proceedings: Science, Measurement and Technology, Vol: 147, Pages: 269-273, ISSN: 1350-2344

Layered Al2O3-TiO2 composite dielectric resonators
Breeze J, Penn SJ, Poole M, Alford NMet al., 2000, ELECTRONICS LETTERS, Vol: 36, Pages: 883-884, ISSN: 0013-5194