About the project
Join the CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre’s (C-PIC)’s Open Platform to develop multimodal machine learning that revolutionises silicon photonics manufacturing. Using open datasets from design, simulation, test, fabrication, and metrology, you’ll create multimodal AI frameworks that predict process outcomes, optimise fabrication, and accelerate sustainable, cost-efficient development of photonic integrated circuits.
This PhD offers the opportunity to shape the future of intelligent manufacturing for photonic integrated circuits (PICs). You will develop multimodal machine learning models that learn from rich and diverse datasets to make photonic design and fabrication faster, smarter, and more sustainable.
The aim is to build models that can learn from existing data and use that knowledge to fill in missing information, predict the quality of wafers or simulations early in the process, and even suggest improved designs or fabrication adjustments. Your work will better inform future design and manufacturing processes, helping improve manufacturing yields, reducing carbon footprint of repeated or unnecessary processes, and significantly lowering the cost and time from design to prototyping and scale-up.
The available and planned open datasets are varied, and include device and system layouts, simulation data, optical measurements of final device performance, metrology measurements of mid-fabrication processes and fabrication recipes. You will explore how different data modalities can be combined to reveal new insights into design-fabrication relationships, and how AI can be used to make the manufacturing pipeline more robust and efficient.
The project will make use of open datasets from the CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre (C-PIC), whose new Open Platform enables researchers and machines to access large-scale photonics data for more intelligent design and manufacturing. You will work alongside experts in photonics, electronics, and machine learning, contributing to one of the UK’s most innovative open-science photonics programmes .
You will join the School of Electronics and Computer Science, ranked 1st in the UK for Electrical and Electronic Engineering within the University of Southampton, ranked top 1% of universities worldwide. We’ll also support the development of your future career and give you opportunities including teaching assistantships, professional networking via leading organizations like Alan Turing Institute, £31M RAI UK Hub, and access to Future Worlds to explore commercialization of your research. You will also have the opportunity to access C-PIC’s hands-on training for design, test and fabrication of silicon photonic devices and several other training events.
The School of Electronics & Computer Science is committed to promoting equality, diversity inclusivity as demonstrated by our Athena SWAN award. We welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age, and will give full consideration to applicants seeking flexible working patterns and those who have taken a career break. The University has a generous maternity policy, onsite childcare facilities, and offers a range of benefits to help ensure employees’ well-being and work-life balance. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and has been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.
