Professor
John Costello,
B.Sc., Ph.D., C.Phys., F.Inst.P,
M.Eur.Phys.Soc,
ORCID: 0000-0003-4677-9999
ResearcherID:
L-8011-2017
Scopus Author ID: 7201995887
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rQGrsCoAAAAJ&hl=en
Co-ordinates
Postal Address:
Room
N233, School of Physics
Glasnevin,
Dublin
9.
Tel:
+353-1-7005304
(Physics)
Fax:
+353-1-7005384
Email:
John.Costello@dcu.ie
University Roles
2011
– 2016: Dean of the Faculty of Science and Health
2009
– 2011: (Acting) Associate Dean (Research) – Faculty of Science and Health
2004
– 2009: Head of the School of Physical Sciences
Academic Ranks
2014
– Present: Full Professor
2005
– 2014: Associate Professor
1990
– 2005: Senior Lecturer
1987
– 1990: Lecturer
1984
– 1987: Assistant Lecturer
DCU
Awards
President’s
Research Award Winner 2017
Richard
O’Kennedy Faculty Awards (Overall Winner) 2023
1980
– 1986: PhD in Laser Plasma Physics (UCD)
1976
– 1980: BSc in Experimental Physics (UCD)
1966
– 1976: Westland Row Christian Brothers Primary and Secondary School – WR CBS –
see the PPU page here
European Physical
Society – EPS (Member)
National/ International
Research Board Memberships
Current Memberships
1.
EPSRC Peer Review College
2.
Institute of Physics (IOP) Fellowship Panel
3.
Editorial Board of the Optics and Lasers section of Applied
Sciences (MDPI)
4.
Scientific Advisory Council of the Centre for Atomic, Molecular and Optical
Sciences and Technologies (CAMOST),
IIT/IISER (Tirupati)
Former National and International Boards/ Committees
1.
Chair Steering Committee, European Fusion Development Association (EFDA) for Ireland
2.
Committee Member IOP Atomic and Molecular Interactions Group (AMIG)
3.
Committee Member of the Institute of Physics
(in Ireland)
4.
Honorary Treasurer of the Institute of
Physics (in Ireland)
5.
Board Member of the European Group for Atomic Spectroscopy
6.
Member International Advisory Board, Highly Charged Ions Conference
Series
7.
Member International Advisory Board, University of Manchester Photon Science Institute
8.
Committee Member of ANREST
9.
Editorial Board of the Journal of Atomic,
Molecular and Optical Physics (JAMOP)
– Hindawi Publishing Corporation
10.
External Examiner (All Physics Programmes) University College Cork (UCC)
11.
Editorial Board of the Journal of Modern Optics (JMO) – Taylor & Francis
12.
Member and Vice-Chair of the European XFEL
SQS
Proposal Review Panel
13.
Founder and International Advisory Board member of the I-SWAMP (Intense-field Short
Wavelength Atomic and Molecular Processes) workshop series
Current
1. School of
Physical Sciences Teaching Committee
2. DCU Research
Infrastructure Executive Committee
Former
1. Academic Council
2. Faculty Executive
Group (Chair)
3. Faculty
Management Board (Chair)
4. Faculty Research
Committee (Chair)
5. Faculty Teaching
Committee
6. Faculty Health
and Safety Committee
7. Faculty Chair
Committee (Chair)
8. DCU Full Economic
Costing Steering Group
9. DCU Senior
Management Group
10. DCU Executive
11. DCU GAA and
Athletics Academies
12. DCU Academic
Promotions Committee
13. DCU Women in
Leadership Steering Group
14. DCU Research
Advisory Panel
15. DCU Graduate
Studies Board
16. DCU University
Research Committee
17. Office of the VP
Research - Sustainability Working Group
18. Search Committee
for President DCU 2010 - 2020
19. DCU Foresight
Panel
20. DCU Mentorship
Working Group
21. DCU Teaching
Quality Evaluation and Enhancement (TQEE) WG
22. DCU India
Working Group
23. DCU Research
Infrastructure Advisory Committee (Chair)
RECENT NEWS ITEMS
12-01-2024
Lazaros Varvarezos has left
DCU to return to Greece for military service and continue to build his career
in AMO physics. We thank Lazaros for the huge scientific
contribution that he made at DCU and MUT-Warsaw during his doctoral and
postdoctoral work and wish him every success in the future. We will continue to
collaborate with him.
08-12-2023
John Costello received the Richard O’Kennedy
(Overall) Award for 2023. It is the highest honour
that the Faculty of Science and Health awards each year.
16-11-2023
Seamus Cummins has a piece on the RTE
Brainstorm website on lasers – an integral part of our SFI and SEAI/ESB
supported projects. You can find it here.
17-10-2023
New
paper by Seamus Cummins et al. published by Spectrochimica Acta B on LIBS with Machine Learning for
contaminant detection on wind turbine blades. Download it here
- the paper is free to download - gold open access.
01-10-2023
Aoife Butler has joined the group as an intern for her final year project. She
will work with Stephen Durkan on spatially profiling the beam from a 13.5 nm
(90 eV) light source comprised of a laser plasma with Mo-Si multilayer mirrors
(MLMs).
05-09-2023
James and Seamus are presenting posters at the 12th Euro-Mediterranean
Symposium on Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Conference (EMSLIBS2023), Porto, Portugal this
week.
02-08-2023
Stephen and Lazaros (Ares) are presenting posters at
the 15th Femtochemistry Conference (FEMTO 15), Berlin, Germany
this week.
25-07-2023 25th Stephen and Ross have posters at the International
Symposium on the Photochemistry and Photophysics of
Coordination Compounds (ISPPCC
2023), Ulm, Germany this week.
18-07-2023
It was on the 18th of July 2011 that the EACEA informed us that the
EXTATIC EMJD was to be funded. With 30 alums from Africa, Asia
and Europe (http://www.extatic.eu/profiles/alumni-profiles)
my colleagues (http://www.extatic.eu/consortium) can be very proud of their
achievements. The only sad note of the programme was
the untimely loss of Prof. Alan Michette RIP, Kings
College London, (https://www.euvlitho.com/2013/S54.pdf) who played a key role
in seeding the idea and co-writing the proposal.
06- 03-2023
Seamus Cummins has a piece on the RTE
Brainstorm website on our SEAI
/ ESB supported ‘laser blade cleaning’ project on wind
turbines. You can find it here.
27-02-2023
Prof. Charles Clark, NIST and University
of Maryland visited DCU while travelling from Merton College Oxford back to the USA.
He gave a talk on Supernavigators and animal optical vision sto 100 Leaving Certificate school children followed by a
talk on structured optical and neutron beams from his work at the Joint Quantum Institute in Maryland.
01-10-2022
Gemma Murray (PHA4), Jamie Somers (AP4) and Peter Moore (EST4) have joined the
group to perform final year projects in EUV sources, quantum chemical
calculations and remote imaging of wind turbine blades, respectively. We wish
all three well in their project adventures with us.
09-09-2022
Intern Jamie Somers was featured in the Independent newspaper on his educational
journey to DCU and his internship in the School of Physical Sciences on the SEAI
RDD laser wind turbine blade project.
19-06-2022
to 09-09-2022 (in person):
25th ICSLS,
Caserta, Italy (June 19 – 24, 2022) - JC
14th
ECAMP, Vilnius, Lithuania (June 27 – July 1, 2022), Stephen & Ares
EU COST (CA17126), Crete,
Greece (July 18, 2022) - JC
LIBS
XII, Bari, Italy (September 5 – 9, 2022) – Séamus,
James and JC
25-03-2022
Syedah Sadaf Zehra, Muhammad Bilal Alli and Hu Lu all
graduated
PhD today. Sadaf and Hu were awarded joint degrees from DCU and UniPD. Many congratulations to all three on their
achievements. Picture of Sadaf and Muhammad at the DCU-SPS reception here.
09-12-2021
Invited seminar on VUV LIBS at CEITEC, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic.
29-11-2021
Plenary talk on VUV Dual Laser Plasma Photoabsorption
Spectroscopy (DLPPS) or Transient Absorption-LIBS at the EMSLIBS conference in Gijon, Spain.
08-11-2021
Invited talk on VUV LIBS at the IFATI4
conference on Industry 4.0 in Japan.
20-09-2021
Iris Apale and Cian McGirr have joined as Year 4
project students. Iris will work on VUV photoabsorption
of laser ablated diatomics like CsI
using the dual laser plasma (DLP) technique. She will analyze ion spectra using
the Cowan
code suite. Cian will use the ORCA quantum chemistry
code to study corresponding molecular spectra.
16-07-2021
Dr. Lazaros Varvarezos has
published a paper in Chemical Physics Letters on Ionization–Dissociation of Methane
with Conor Long
(DCU) and SQS
group at the European XFEL - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cplett.2021.138687
13-07-2021
Sadaf Syedah Zehra defended her thesis successfully
this afternoon. Many congrats to her and many thanks to co-supervisors, Dr. Paddy Hayden, now Assistant
Professor in UCD physics, and Prof. Piergiorgio Nicolosi of UniPD. Thanks also to external examiner Prof. Jose Vadillo of the University
of Malaga, internal examiners Prof. Colette
McDonagh and Prof.
Giampiero Naletto and
viva chair Assoc.
Prof. Lampros Nikolopoulos.
21-06-2021
John Costello has been invited to deliver a plenary talk at the 11th EMSLIBS in Gijón, Spain (Nov. 29th to Dec. 2nd,
2021). The talk will centre on Vacuum-UV Photoabsorption of Atoms and Ions with Laser Induced
Plasmas.
11-06-2021
Muhammad Bilal Alli defended his thesis successfully this morning. Many congrats
to him and his main supervisor, Dr.
Paddy Hayden, now Assistant Professor in UCD physics. External examiner, Prof.
Philip Martin, internal examiner, Assoc Prof. Paul van Kampen and viva chair, Assoc. Prof. Blanaid White.
31-05-2021
Irish Apale has completed her internship with the
research group. She is moving to Twilio
for the remainder of her ‘INTRA’ year. We thank Irish for her work with the
group and wish her well in her new role in the private sector.
28-05-2021
We recently visited the ESB Wind Farm at Raheenleagh.
There is a picture of the group here on Twitter.
The DCU Physics and UCD Physics collaboration is funded by,
and in collaboration with, the SEAI
and the ESB.
25-03-2021
John Costello has received an ‘Outstanding Reviewer’ award from the IOP
(Institute of Physics). The list of awardees can be found here.
24-03-2021
Sadaf Syedah Zehra submitted her thesis entitled “Time
Resolved and Time Integrated VUV LIBS for the Detection of Light Elements in
Metals” for examination in respect of the award of a joint doctorate
between DCU and UniPD. Sadaf is part of the EU EMJD programme
EXTATIC that was funded by the EU agency EACEA.
24-03-2021
Muhammad Bilal Alli submitted his thesis entitled “Vacuum Ultraviolet Laser
Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (VUV-LIBS) For Pharmaceutical Analysis” for
examination in respect of the award of a PhD degree.
17-03-2021
John Costello has been designated a ‘Trusted Reviewer’ by the IOP (Institute of
Physics). Details on the scheme are here.
26-02-2021
Dr. Lazaros Varvarezos has
published a paper in the Physical Review A on non-linear ionization of Kr with
the FLASH FEL collaboration - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.103.022832
18-02-2021
Irish Apale has joined the research group as an
intern. She is working on atomic structure calculations (using the Cowan suite
of codes) for metal ions of potential interest in nanoparticle based EUVL
resist materials.
18-01-2021
The latest paper from our collaboration at X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs)
was published in Nature Physics - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-01111-0.
The background story to the work is at https://www.dcu.ie/commsteam/news/2021/jan/clocking-movement-electrons-inside-atom
- The preprint is on ARXIV at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.10398
Click here for old news items
Semester 1:
PS407 Quantum Electronics – Laser Physics
Main text: Fundamentals of Photonics, B.E. Saleh and M. Teich (Wiley, 2nd edition, 2007)
Download PS407
1st section here
Download PS407
2nd section here
Download PS407
3rd section here
Download PS407
4th section here
Download PS407
5th section here
Download PS407
6th section here
Download PS407
7th section here
Download PS407
8th section here
PS451 Year 4 Physics Projects
PS258 Year 2 Physics Laboratory
Semester 2:
PS403 Digital Signal Processing
Main text: Digital Signal Processing with
Computer Applications. Wolfgang Fuerst and Paul A.
Lynn, Wiley.
Download PS403
1st section here
Download PS403 2nd section here
Download PS403 3rd section here
Download PS403 4th section here
Download PS403 5th section here
Download PS403 6th section here
Download PS403 7th section here
Download PS403 8th section here
PS451 Year 4 Physics Projects
PS259/260/261 Year 2 Physics Laboratory
_________________________________________________________________________
PUBLICATIONS
300+ Conference
Abstracts
Nature Photonics News and Views Articles
PNAS Commentary
Various
other contributions, e.g., to the Irish Scientist magazine.
Some TALKS
Recent talks (up to 20 MB
ppt/pdf files !!) given at:
Invited - CFEL Hamburg Colloqium on colliding plasmas, February 6th
2015. Download
Invited - School of Physics,
University College Dublin, March 5th 2015. Download
Invited - 4th CDAMOP,
Delhi, March 12th, 2015. Download
Invited - “The future of ion spectroscopy
at FLASH”, DESY, Hamburg, June 2nd, 2015. Download
Invited - SFI schools talk [Download] given to
Transition Year Students in:
Magh Ene College, Bundoran, Co.
Donegal, January 25th 2016-06-03
COST MP1208 Meeting, Belgrade, April
18th 2016 [Download]
Invited - All Ireland Conference on
Quantum Technologies, Maynooth University, June 1st 2016 [Download]
Invited - Institute of Advanced
Studies of the TUM, Munich 12th September 2016 [Download]
Invited - SFI ISCA Ireland-Japan
Workshop UCD November 4th 2016 [Download]
Invited - CONUL – Consortium of
National and University Libraries. Talk preceding discourse on Open Access, May
31st 2017 at CONUL
2017 – [Download]
Invited - School of Physical
Sciences, The Open University, UK, June 22, 2017 [Download]
Photonics Ireland, Galway, September
13, 2017 [Download]
Invited - Colloquium, Kassel
University, Germany, December 14, 2017 [Download]
President’s Research Award Day, February 22, 2017 – View the
talk here
COST Action CA17126 – TUMIEE, Porto, Portugal, March 4, 2019 [Download]
Invited - SEAI/SFI MaREI
Workshop – Online from NUIG Galway, December 2, 2020 [Download]
Invited - Silver Jubilee Webinar Series, International School
of Photonics (ISP), Cochin University of Science and Technology, India - March
19th 2021 [Download] – Youtube
link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppxDqOtNWPw
Invited - IFATI4
Meeting on Industry 4.0 at Tokushima
University, Japan, 8th November, 2021 [Download]
Invited - Plenary invited talk on VUV Dual Laser Plasma Photoabsorption Spectroscopy (DLPPS) or Transient
Absorption-LIBS at the EMSLIBS
conference in Gijon, Spain, November 29th, 2021 [Download]
Invited seminar on VUV LIBS at CEITEC, Brno
University of Technology, Czech Republic, December 9th, 2021 [Download]
Talk at the 25th ICSLS
Conference, Caserta, Italy, June 19 – 24, 2022 [Download]
Talk at the TUMIEE CA17126 EU COST
Action, Crete, Greece, July 18, 2022 [Download]
Invited - Talk at the LIBS XII conference in Bari, Italy, September
5 – 9, 2022
[Download]
Invited - Talk at Frontiers
of Measurement Technology, Belfast, Queens University, June 20-21, 2023 [Download]
MEET (AT LEAST SOME OF) US
AT:
2024
TU-Munich (X-ray Chair) Munich (February
5 – 12, 2024)
2023
DESY/XFEL Users Hamburg (January 23 – 27, 2023)
SEAI
Energy Show RDS, Dublin (March
29 – 30, 2023)
IOP
Ireland Meeting Armagh, NI (11 March 2023)
UK XFEL Townhall QUB,
Belfast, NI (20 – 21 June 2023)
25th ISPPCC Ulm,
Germany (July 25 – 29, 2023)
(International Symposium on the Photochemistry and Photophysics of Coordination Compounds)
FEMTO15 Berlin, Germany (July 30 – August 4,
2023)
12th EMSLIBS Porto,
Portugal (September 4 – 7, 2023)
2022
DESY/XFEL Users Online from Hamburg (January 21
– 27, 2022)
25th ICSLS Caserta, Italy (June
19 – 24, 2022)
14th ECAMP Vilnius, Lithuania
(June 27 – July 1, 2022)
EU COST (CA17126) Crete, Greece (July 18, 2022)
LIBS XII Bari, Italy (September 5 – 9, 2022)
SFI Summit Strand
Hotel, Limerick, Ireland (November 21 – 22, 2022)
2021
DESY/XFEL Users Online from Hamburg (January 29
– 31, 2021)
47th IOP Plas Phys Div Online from London (April 6 – 9, 2021)
9th Photonics Ireland Online from Dublin (June 14 – 16,
2021)
32nd ICPEAC Online from Ottawa (July 20 – 23, 2021)
EOSAM 2021 Rome, Italy (September 13 – 17, 2021)
Adv. Tech. Ind. 4.0 Online from Tokushima Uni.,
Japan (Nov. 8, 2021)
11th EMSLIBS Gijon, Spain (November 29 – December 2, 2021)
Seminar, CEITAC Brno, Czech Republic (December
8 – 10, 2021)
RESEARCH
ACTIVITIES
Research Affiliations
National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology,
Dublin City University
Current Research Interests
1.
Fast and ultrafast laser matter interaction
2.
Laser ablation and LIBS
3.
Vis/ UV, Extreme-UV and soft X-ray imaging and spectroscopy
4.
Fundamental photoionization processes with EUV and X-ray free electron lasers
(FELs)
Sustainable
Energy Authority of Ireland: Research Development and Demonstration (RDD)
Programme
EU FP7 EACEA:
Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate Scheme – EXTATIC
1. Laser
Ablation for Wind Turbine Blade Contaminant Classification, Quantification and
Removal
DCU: John Costello,
James Campbell, Séamus Cummins and Lazaros
Varvarezos
UCD: Paddy
Hayden, Padraig Dunne and Ross Murray
SEAI: Lucy Corcoran and John McCann
ESB: David
Byrne
2.
One and Multi-Colour Experiments in Femtotime –
X-ray Free Electron Laser Experiments
DCU: John Costello, Stephen Durkan and Lazaros Varvarezos
XFEL: Michael Meyer, Markus Ilchen, Patrik Grychtol and Tommaso Mazza
PSI: Adrian Cavalieri
DESY: Stefan Duesterer
FERMI: Kevin Prince, Michele Di Fraia Oksana Plekan, Luca Giannesi and Carlo Callegari
SLAC: Ryan Coffee, Matthias Hoffman
QUB: Jason
Greenwood
TUM: Reinhard Kienberger,
Albert Schletter, Markus Wurzer
TUD: Wolfi Helml
GMIT: Mossy Kelly
Moscow: Alexei Grum-Grzhimailo
and Nikoloay Kabachnik
Madrid: Fernando Martin, Alicia Palacios
and Delgado Guerrero
Paris: Denis
Cubaynes
Tohoku: Kiyoshi
Ueda
3. EUV and Ultrafast Spectroscopy for
EUVL Materials
DCU: John
Costello, Mary Pryce, Stephen Durkan and Ross McGarry
TUM: Reini Kienberger
UCD: Paddy
Hayden
MUT: Henryk Fiedorowicz,
Andrzej Bartnik and Przemyslaw
Wachulak
INTEL: Matt Shaw and James Blackwell
Ext: Lazaros Varvarezos
4. Space
and time resolved VUV LIBS
DCU: Séamus Cummins, John Costello and
Eugene Kennedy
UCD: Paddy Hayden
UniPD: Piergiorgio Nicolosi
Ext: Muhammed Bilal Alli,
Laser Plasma and AMO Physics PIs
at DCU:
Assoc
Prof. L. Nikolopoulos, Assoc. Prof. J-P. Mosnier,
Assoc. Prof. Paul van Kampen and Prof. E. T. Kennedy (Emeritus)
Current Research Students
1. James Campbell (Funded by SEAI)
Laser Ablation for Wind
Turbine Blade Contaminant Classification, Quantification and Removal
2. Séamus Cummins (Funded by SEAI)
Laser Ablation for Wind Turbine Blade Contaminant Classification,
Quantification and Removal
3. Stephen Durkan (Funded by SFI)
Dynamics
of new materials for EUVL
4. Ross McGarry (Funded by SFI)
Dynamics
of new materials for EUVL (Joint with Mary Pryce)
5. Ross Murray (Funded by SEAI)
Laser Ablation for Wind Turbine Blade Contaminant Classification,
Quantification and Removal (Supervisors Paddy Hayden and Padraig Dunne [UCD])
Final Year Project Students
Ms. Aoife Butler (AP4)
Extreme-UV (EUV) Exposure Tool for
Lithographic Resists – EUV Optical Diagnostics
No |
Former Postdoctoral Fellows |
Former Research Students |
1 |
Dr. Cormac McGuinness (with ETK) |
Richard Corcoran |
2 |
Dr. Amit Neogi |
Martin Collins (Co-advisor with JPM) |
3 |
Dr. Mark Stapleton |
John Dardis |
4 |
Dr. Hugo de Luna |
Lee Dardis |
5 |
Dr. Deirdre Kilbane (with PVK) |
Barry Doyle |
6 |
Dr. Kevin Kavanagh |
John Hirsch |
7 |
Dr. Lynn Gaynor (with PVK) |
Padraig Hough |
8 |
Dr. Jofre Pedregosa |
Kevin Kavanagh |
9 |
Dr. Padraig Hough |
Oonagh
Meighan |
10 |
Dr.
Subhash Singh |
Matthew Shaw |
11 |
Dr.
Paddy Hayden |
Brian Doohan |
12 |
Dr.
Colm Fallon |
Vincent Richardson |
13 |
Dr.
Mossy Kelly |
Caroline Banahan
(2nd advisor with PVK) |
14 |
Dr.
Pramod Pandey |
Jiang Xi (Joint with ETK) |
15 |
Dr.
Stephen Davitt (with P Hayden) |
Mossy Kelly |
16 |
Dr.
Lazaros Varvarezos |
Colm Fallon (Joint with ETK) |
17 |
|
Brian Sheehy (Joint with Liam Barry) |
18 |
|
Nicky Walsh |
19 |
|
William Hanks (Co-advisor with LN) |
20 |
|
Getasew
Wubetu (Joint with Mossy Kelly, H Fiedorowicz & W Skrzeczanowski) |
21 |
|
Columb
Doherty |
22 |
|
Stephen Davitt (Joint with Mossy
Kelly) |
23 |
|
Ben Delaney (Joint with Eugene
Kennedy) |
24 |
|
Lazaros
Varvarezos (Joint with A Bartnik) |
25 |
|
Hu Lu (Joint with P Nicolosi/P
Hayden) |
26 |
|
Muhammad Bilal Alli (Joint with P
Hayden) |
27 |
|
Syedah
Sadaf Zehra (Joint with P Nicolosi/P Hayden) |
Past Visiting Research
Students (EU MC, HEA North-South, SFI, UPPI, Naughton-Notre Dame & Other)
Nely Parvanova
(Sofia)
Philip Orr (Belfast)
Domenico Doria
(Lecce)
Floralice Miroiu (Bucharest)
Alice Delserieys
(Belfast)
Nadia Gambino (Catania)
Ricarda Laasch
(Hamburg)
Julien Witz
(Paris-Palaiseau)
Raman
Namboodiri (Chennai)
Sudhakara Reddy (Chennai)
Ravi Singh (Kanpur)
Shyam Gupta (Kanpur)
Irene Maria
Carrasco Garcia (Malaga)
Aparna Neettiyath (Chennai)
Sean Howard
(Notre Dame)
Robert Black
(Notre Dame)
Patrick Colley (Notre Dame)
Former SFI STARs (Teachers) Former SFI UREKA Students
Dee
Kilbane (2007 & 2008) Mossy
Kelly (AP3 – 2007)
Stephen
Chaney (2008)