Professor Yuerui "Larry" Lu is fascinated by the tiny world.
Ever since he attended a seminar on nanoscience and nanotechnology in his undergraduate course, he's been amazed it.
"We can do big things from the tiny world," Professor Lu said.
"These days there's tons of applications from nanoscience and nanotechnology ... in daily life for example, from sunscreen to electronics."
While most of us are familiar with using metres, centimetres and millimetres, his team works in nanometres.
Millimetres are made up of micrometres, and nanometres are the next level beyond that - so one millimetre is made up of 1000 micrometres, and each of those micrometres contains 1000 nanometres.
The professor of engineering at the Australian National University has been recognised in the prestigious 2023 Prime Minister's Prizes for Science.
He received the Malcolm McIntoch Prize for physical scientist of the year for two cutting-edge discoveries.
Firstly, he and his team made the first experimental discovery of interlayer exciton pairs, which is when a positive charge and negative charge are sitting in two different layers.
"When many of those interlayer excitons come together, they can transform into a superfluid. A superfluid is like a superhighway, allowing those interlayer excitons to move really fast, similar to cars on the freeway," Professor Lu said.
"This means this discovery can pave the way for a new generation of electronic devices so those electronic devices could be much faster and consume far less energy than what we have today."
The next challenge is to find a way to make this superhighway work at room temperature, as currently it only works at a very cold temperature.
Professor Lu's team has also created the world's thinnest micro lens, which is one two-thousandth of the thickness of a human hair.
This could have many applications where a lightweight and low power optical system is needed.
"This can enable new opportunities for example, space exploration, medical screening, environmental monitoring, and food safety."
The award comes about 10 years after Professor Lu joined the university. He was attracted to Canberra's climate and environment, as well as the chance to work with leading scientists at the ANU.
He said it was a tremendous honour for him and his team to receive the prize for their work.
"Nanoscience is important for our society because it can create new knowledge, improve education and also potentially increase the quality of our lives.
"Science can respond to social needs and global challenges."
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