About the project
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.
Some applications specifically require high power to perform the intended tasks whilst others require low noise and narrow linewidth. Increasing the output power from fibre lasers has been the focus of intense research for applications in scientific research, industrial processing and manufacturing, defence and security, and has helped to develop a plethora of new fibre types and pump sources.
Fibre lasers with wavelength-flexible single-frequency sources support and facilitate an increasing need and demand in parallel areas of practical applications, including high-precision metrology, spectroscopy, remote sensing, frequency conversion, gravitational wave detection and coherent LIDAR.
Lasers with narrow linewidths at or below the kHz level are required for emerging quantum computing applications and coherent combination of multiple fibre laser beams are required to enable very high power-levels (100s of kW CW).
This PhD project will innovate and develop a range of properties of fibre lasers in parallel, including those of wavelength-agile, narrow linewidth sources. You will initially focus on developing, demonstrating, and characterising the fibre laser sources and will subsequently aim to utilise the developed technology in a range of the mentioned application areas. This is largely an experimental project, but some theoretical modelling will be required to guide the laser developments and help analyse the generated data and results. The project offers considerable opportunities for applicants with innovation and a desire to broach new areas of science and technology.
