Electronics and computer science

Both Mid-IR and Raman molecular fingerprint spectroscopies have been shown to be powerful bio-diagnostic tools for specific biomarkers. Enhancing the sensitivity and improving the detection limit of current Mid-IR and Raman spectroscopic platforms are most important to exploit them for early diagnosis of disease biomarkers in point of care setting.

Work with us on this exciting and cutting-edge research at The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). 

Novel crystalline photonic devices offer exciting opportunities for creating efficient lasers and manipulating the properties of light. Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) is an extraordinary technique using light to create new materials.

Studying mechanical properties of large, complex structures such as a space launch vehicles or Earth’s crust relies on a large array of sophisticated and often, expensive sensors. Due to budget constraints, the number of sensing nodes deployed in such projects are limited to a few hundred which limits the scale and scope of these studies.

Impulsive control systems (ICS) have received attention in the last decade in a wide range of applications, especially biomedical applications such as cancer treatment. This project is expected to benefit both oncology and control theory fields. You will have a unique opportunity to contribute in developing a rethinking of how the treatment is administrated in oncological clinics. 

Fibre lasers that are increasingly becoming the light source of choice for a wide range of industrial and scientific applications, have spurred the development of new types of rare-earth (i.e., Yb, Er, Tm, and Ho) doped fibres, each with a unique set of properties to match with the specific applications. Since the fibre design and material properties of the fibre core have become critical to the performance of the fibre laser, a more powerful fibre fabrication process is required than the current industry standard process, which is MCVD (Modified Chemical Vapour Deposition) - solution doping technique.

Electronic textiles, or e-textiles, refers to the addition of electronics, sensors, actuators, energy harvesters and energy storage within fabric materials. Textiles are the most common material humans come into physical contact with, so e-textiles provide a ubiquitous platform for a new class of wearable technology where the electronics are hidden and undetectable within otherwise standard items of clothing.

Electronic textiles, or e-textiles, refers to the addition of electronics, sensors, actuators, energy harvesters and energy storage within fabric materials. Textiles are the most common material humans come into physical contact with, so e-textiles provide a ubiquitous platform for a new class of wearable technology where the electronics are hidden and undetectable within otherwise standard items of clothing.

Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship (UK fees and International) to work on triboelectric energy harvesting within garments.  

Two dimensional (2D)-materials are currently at the forefront of an exciting wave of scientific research. Compared to bulk materials, the high confinement in the 2D plane gives rise to unique optical and electronic properties that are advantageous for wide-ranging applications. However, from a photonics perspective, interacting with very thin layers can be inefficient, so that clever techniques must be applied to enhance the light-matter interaction and achieve high quality devices.

Work with us on this exciting cutting-edge research in future directions of User-Centred Interactive Information Access (FUCIA), which aims to design and develop future information access technologies for different user information needs in different context. 

Hollow core fibres (HCFs) are an exciting, novel optical fibre technology where light is guided in an air-filled core. We are a world-leading group, which designs, characterises and fabricates state-of-the-art HCFs in our specialist facilities. Recently we reported a new world record low loss for this type of optical fibre, making HCFs contenders for a diverse range of interesting applications, including telecommunications, high power laser delivery and novel medical diagnostics.

Generation of femtosecond and attosecond X-ray pulses using intense laser pulses has transformed ultrafast science. The ability to produce coherent ultrafast X-ray pulses has applications in many areas, from the investigation of ultrafast molecular dynamics to biomedical imaging.

Recent years have seen remarkable progress in the development of hollow core fibres (HCFs). Not only can HCFs transmit extreme laser power levels beyond the fundamental damage threshold of glass, but they can also achieve even lower propagation loss than traditional glass fibres, as demonstrated by researchers at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC). This progress has led to the demonstration of record kilowatt laser power transmission over a kilometre-range HCF, well beyond the capability of standard glass fibres.

You will investigate a route to high-power visible sources through cladding pumping of RE-doped silica fibres using GaN-LDs. You will be involved in the fabrication of RE (such as Pr3+, Dy3+ and Tb3+) - doped fibres in modified silica glass hosts offering low phonon energy while maintaining the other characteristics of silica fibres. Additionally, you will perform a detailed spectroscopic characterisation of the fabricated fibres and will be involved in the development of visible fibres. You will have access to the the state-of-the-art fibre fabrication facilities and laboratories at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) in the Zepler Institute.

This project will focus on developing algorithms to allow autonomous systems to make decisions based on information they receive from sensors. Your work will be applied to distributed systems which operate in challenging environments.

The Web Science Institute (WSI) at the University of Southampton is offering PhD studentships for multidisciplinary doctoral research with a particular focus on Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence (AI).  

An emerging research trend in cardiovascular sciences focuses on discovering useful diagnostic information from the dynamic analysis of concurrent physiological measurements, such as the electrocardiogram (ECG), continuous blood pressure, cerebral blood velocity, CO2 levels (capnography) etc. The aim of this PhD project is to develop new methods for the analysis of time series cardiovascular measurements. This will lead to faster and better targeted treatments for conditions such as stroke and head injury, resulting in improved brain protection and better outcomes for patients.

Moore’s Law is currently being challenged with Nvidia CEO recently claiming it is dead. The scaling of transistors cannot continue due to physical limitations of silicon. 2D semiconductors offer the solution as they can be scaled to the molecular level and create excellent devices such as transistors, light emitters, and photodetectors.

This project will explore the unique capability of hollow core fibres (HFC) for kilowatt-class laser power transmission over kilometre-range distances, as recently demonstrated at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) [1]. The project will be mainly experimental but will also include some numerical modelling to support the work. The project work will take place across several research groups, covering state-of-the-art high-power laser facilities and world-leading hollow-core fibre fabrication, allowing the candidate to collaborate with experienced researchers in both fields to achieve the project objectives.

This PhD project explores machine learning techniques for affective computing that automates the process of recognising, interpreting and simulating human affects such as facial emotion generation. The current affective computing domain suffers from remarkable expenses and ambiguities on manual annotations.

Modern society depends massively on the generation, processing and transmission of vast amounts of data. It is predicted that by 2025, 175 zettabytes (175 trillion gigabytes) of data will be generated around the globe. Processing such huge amounts of data demands ever increasing computational power, memory and communication bandwidth. These demands cannot be sustainably met by conventional digital electronic technologies. Indeed, CMOS-based von Neumann architectures are now approaching a widely accepted ‘efficiency-wall’, a fundamental limit on the number of operations per unit energy, while the number of operations required continues to grow at unprecedented rates.

Electronic devices, such as computers, mobile phones and data centres, account for a significant amount of the world's energy consumption. Novel technologies are needed to deliver high-speed, low-power and efficient computing and communication. 

You will develop innovative techniques for argumentation mining in multimodal contexts, focusing on audio and natural language processing (NLP) applications. Understanding arguments in various formats, such as text, audio and video, is essential for effective communication and informed decision-making, meaning Argumentation Mining is a highly relevant and impactful research area.

Distributed fibre optic sensing (DFOS) are becoming increasingly important for marine, maritime, glacial and urban environmental and infrastructure monitoring applications. They are important in scenarios where environmental vibrations can be complex and challenging such as seismic activity, underwater soundscapes, building’s structural integrity, traffic.

Fibre optics has transformed telecommunications and profoundly impacted industrial manufacturing, medical endoscopy and structural sensing. In many applications however, solid fibres are operating close to fundamental physical limits imposed by the glass forming their core. A transformative new technology is emerging where light is guided in air or vacuum, in a Hollow Core Fibre (HCF). HCFs have the potential to become the best optical waveguide ever produced and to bring positive impacts in many application fields.

Hollow-core optical fibres (HCFs) offer a radically new solution for laser delivery as they guide light in a gas-filled core, as opposed to glass in conventional optical fibres. HCF-based mid-infrared laser delivery systems could open exciting possibilities for diverse and valuable applications, including surgical treatment, gas sensing, and materials processing.

We are working in collaboration with a large EU consortium to create a reprogrammable neuromorphic photonic platform for a variety of applications from telecommunications to biosensing. We use the latest generation of phase change materials to create highly efficient in-memory photonic functionality with novel materials that allow the upscaling of the technology.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a powerful tool for studying molecular structures and dynamics in samples. It has numerous applications, such as drug discovery and cancer diagnosis. However, the bulky size and high cost limit NMR’s widespread applications in medicine, biology and chemistry.

Electronic devices such as computers, mobile phones and data centres account for a significant amount of the world's energy consumption. We need to invent novel technologies to deliver high-speed, low-power, and efficient computing and communication.

We are looking for a PhD student to work on the design and numerical simulation of the next generation of high-power fibre lasers. This project is part of a major new initiative funded by the UK Research Council at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), University of Southampton.

As advances are made in Artificial Intelligence (AI), the technology is being applied to health-related problems. For example, how we evaluate the trustworthiness of these systems in the health context.

Hollow-core optical fibres guide light in a central hole inside a silica microstructure. These newly developed fibres exceed traditional solid fibres used in the past 40 years in every metric: lower attenuation, nonlinearity, latency, and better high-power laser transmission. However, the central hole where light is transmitted is typically filled with air and for several applications even air limits the fibre performance.

Two dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials, such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are emerging as revolutionary components in nanophotonics. Recently, defects and strains in these vdW materials have attracted considerable interest as they can be engineered to realise quantum light emission, such as single-photon emitters, a crucial element for the development of quantum information technologies.

We are delighted to invite applications for a 4-year interdisciplinary PhD studentship in VR content production for inclusive virtual education. Working with stakeholders at all stages, you will research, design, develop and test an open VR content production solution for educators and students. This will aim to overcome the barriers to the widespread adoption of VR in schools, using science to raise young people’s awareness and interest in health issues. This will also make positive changes to health-related attitudes.

Fibre lasers have seen a rapid development in output power and performance over the past three decades and have revolutionised the application space for photonics. However the development of fibre lasers with wavelength-flexible single-frequency sources is lagging other areas of fibre lasers research.

This project explores how computer vision and audio analysis can work in synergy to create new technologies. In particular, it focuses on audio-visual artificial intelligence (AVAI), which can be implemented in ultra-low power devices, including wearables, hearing aids and sensors. AVAI is crucial in a range of applications, from advanced hearing aid design to understanding scenes in urban and natural environments.

Wearable technologies are revolutionising our daily lives, integrating everyday objects into our clothes, accessories and even our bodies. How can we power these without using rigid batteries that require overnight charging?  Using our body’s heat, thermoelectric generators can provide uninterrupted renewable energy for wearable devices.