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Postgraduate research project

Ultra-stable hollow core fibre photonics

Funding
Competition funded View fees and funding
Type of degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Entry requirements
2:1 honours degree View full entry requirements
Faculty graduate school
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
Closing date

About the project

Here in the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), at the University of Southampton, radically different, new generation optical fibres are being designed and manufactured. The unique properties of these hollow core optical fibres mean they surpass the traditional glass core fibres used today in virtually every aspect. However, their performance can be further improved or tailored to a specific application via their design. The core of the project lies in research work with such tailored hollow core fibres.

On this project you will have significant interaction with the fibre design and manufacturing teams, as well as with potential end user groups. This may include the National Physical Laboratory in London and several companies in the fields of fibre optic sensing and optical communications.

A signal propagating through an optical fibre is generally considered to be immune to the external environment and associated disturbances. However, this is only true in terms of the signal intensity (power). The time signal needs to propagate through the fibre depends on environmental changes like temperature variations. Hollow core fibres perform significantly better in this particular property than today fibres. With further design and engineering, we have reduced it even further, which is critical in many fibre systems.

This includes:

  • interferometry (widely used in any field of optics, including quantum technologies)
  • ultra-precise time or frequency transfer (to support improvement of the already most-precisely defined units like second and meter
  • next generation data networks (such as 6G)

Low sensitivity to external environment is only one of numerous examples, where hollow core fibres excel. This property will, however, be in the centre of the successful candidate PhD research work.

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