Current research degree projects

We are looking for a PhD student to join our interdisciplinary team of students, postdocs, and senior researchers developing chip-based, microscale optics for advancing quantum technologies.

This exciting multidisciplinary PhD project aims to develop a new class of marine sensors based on cutting-edge MID-IR silicon photonics research. The ocean, which acts as an environmental buffer by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activity such as burning fossil fuels and changing land use (e.g. deforestation), is paying a heavy price. Ocean heat is at record levels and there have been widespread marine heatwaves. The past decade was exceptional in terms of global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities. Sea water is 26 percent more acidic than at the start of the industrial era, which poses an extreme hazard. The ocean absorbs about 38% of the CO2 released in the atmosphere. As atmospheric CO2 increases, the amount absorbed by the ocean also increases. When CO2 is absorbed by seawater, a series of chemical reactions occur resulting in the increased concentration of hydrogen ions and acidification. This process has far reaching implications for the ocean and the creatures that live there. 

Visible lasers are indispensable for applications such as display, underwater communication, microscopy, bio-photonics, optical storage, and materials processing. Often, high laser power is required. So far, the mainstream of high-power visible laser development has relied on frequency conversion techniques. However, often such systems are complex and require incorporation of bulk elements into the cavity, and thus are not suitable for robust, monolithic, devices. On the other hand, most rare earth (RE) ions exhibit absorption lines in the blue spectral region and fluorescence in the visible region. The progress in GaN-laser diodes (GaN-LD) covering wavelengths between 390 and 460 nm makes them promising pump sources for RE-doped solid-state lasers with direct emissions in the visible. To date, visible lasers utilising RE-doped fibres have been reported in fluoride glasses (such as ZBLAN) due to lower phonon energy than in oxide glasses, notably silica. However, fluoride glass fibres are known for their poor chemical durability, weak mechanical properties, higher background loss than silica fibres. Critically, they are also difficult to splice with silica fibre components. This makes it near-impossible to develop an all-fibre laser system and is a critical bottleneck to improved performance and commercial breakthrough.

Global internet traffic has been growing exponentially over the past two decades with a predicted growth rate of around 40% year-on-year. This growth is driven primarily by bandwidth-hungry applications such as cloud computing, Telemedicine, and 4K live streaming and is expected to continue in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G. However, the present optical fibre communication network’s capacity is solely based on the 11THz (C and L bands) gain bandwidth of erbium (Er) doped fibre amplifiers (EDFA) invented three decades ago. The scaling of the overall transmission capacity requires next-generation optical fibre amplifiers with ultra-broad gain bandwidths to further utilise the low-loss window offered by the solid- and hollow-core silica optical fibres.

We are looking for a PhD student to join our interdisciplinary team of students, postdocs, and senior researchers developing systems for quantum technologies.In conjunction with our partner (California Institute of Technology, Caltech), you will develop ultra-high-Q, ring resonators, for rotation sensing and timing. These integrated resonators are a key component in photonics and will be a key enabling technology in several areas, including the stabilisation of atom trap clocks, rotation sensors and narrow-linewidth lasers. We will also work with other UK and international collaborators and PhD students to develop and demonstrate these applications.

High-capacity ground-to-satellite communications have long relied on microwaves for data transmission, as they have since the very first communications satellites were launched. However, the surge in demand for data-intensive digital services and the evolution of sophisticated satellite-borne sensors have pushed microwave links to their limit, transforming them into a critical data transmission bottleneck.

We are looking for a PhD student to join our interdisciplinary team of students, postdocs, and senior researchers with backgrounds in physics, chemistry, and engineering, to work on the development of a new femtosecond laser-based source of X-ray pulses approaching the attosecond regime (less than a millionth of a billionth of a second long).

This project will focus on research into the next generation of optical data communication technology enabling key applications such as high-performance computing and artificial intelligence to thrive. 

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship to be undertaken within the silicon photonics group at the University of Southampton. The successful applicants will join a world leading research group of more than 50 postgraduate students and researchers working on silicon photonics technologies and photonic interconnects technologies in close collaboration with academia and industry. The project will be undertaken as part of a €10M research effort ongoing within the two Horizon Europe EU projects Octapus and Ambrosia.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a widespread respiratory condition affecting all ages, causes respiratory failure due to inflamed, fluid-filled lungs hindering gas exchange. COVID-19 highlighted ARDS globally, leading to hospitalizations and deaths.