About the project
Our vision is to develop a new generation of photonic devices on-chip for applications that underpin our societal telecommunications, computing and sensing.
To achieve this vision, we are looking for an exceptional candidate who will join our team to develop these technologies and investigate their commercial potential. You will be working closely with our industrial partners Graphenea and Grolltex.
As a researcher on this project, you will:
- exploit the unique physical properties of atomically thin (2D) materials like graphene to push the performance boundaries of on-chip photonic systems
- build upon demonstrated unconventional and novel techniques to develop a growth method enabling these materials to be integrated at a wafer scale
- take part in the integration of these materials into photonic devices, test their device performance and assess them against simulated results.
- collaborate with leading research groups in photonics and 2D materials from Imperial College, University of Cambridge and UCL.
The research will be based in the Zepler Institute, the largest centre for photonics research in the UK, encompassing one of the largest University cleanrooms in Europe. You will be a member of the Integrated Photonics group and work within a team of highly enthusiastic researchers with a strong track record in developing on-chip silicon photonic devices and novel optoelectronic materials, many of which have reached maturity and are currently commercialised by our various industrial partners.
The Zepler Institute PhD comprises a solid education for a research career. The structured first year involves attending our training programme running in parallel with carrying out your research project. This provides a smooth transition from your degree course towards the more open-ended research that takes place in the following years under the guidance of your supervisors.
We expect the vast majority of our students to present their work at international conferences and to write papers in leading academic journals as their research progresses. Students will emerge from the PhD with skills at the forefront of future photonics and semiconductor research and will benefit from many opportunities to interact with the wider community of PhD students across the Southampton Campus.