Current research degree projects
Explore our current postgraduate research degree and PhD opportunities.
Explore our current postgraduate research degree and PhD opportunities.
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.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas whose emissions have caused about 30% of global heating to date. At COP-26 a multinational alliance of 105 countries pledged to cut their methane emissions by 30% in the next decade, because it is thought to be the most effective way to reduce near-term global warming. One of the most important levers for doing so will be to reduce natural gas leakage from fossil fuel production infrastructure, but to achieve this new low-cost technologies for immediately detecting the leaks will be needed.
The main goal of the project is to design metamaterial structures for efficient sensing systems. Silicon Photonics can offer small and low cost sensors for environmental monitoring (e.g. green house gases), industrial process control, agriculture or healthcare. Metamaterial structures can be used for the realisation of low loss waveguides with large evanescent field, efficient optical fibre–to–silicon chip coupling or for the integration of detectors on silicon chips.
The mid-infrared wavelength range is a new frontier for integrated photonics with a huge potential for the realisation of compact and efficient sensors for point of care diagnostics in healthcare, detection of green house gases or toxins in food, for monitoring air quality, or industrial process control, to mention a few.
Ultrafast lasers providing femtosecond pulses are enabling a rapidly increasing range of applications in science and industry, including physics, chemistry, medicine, biology, and materials processing. A large part of this relies on the transition from bulky, expensive, and maintenance-intensive Ti:sapphire lasers to fiber lasers. Ultrafast fibre lasers are superior in format and convenience, offering great advantages in terms of high efficiency, good compactness, low cost, and free of maintenance, which has become one of the main hot topics in laser science.
The mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectral region of 2-20 µm contains strong characteristic vibrational transitions of many important molecules and incorporates the atmospheric transmission window, which makes it crucial for applications in spectroscopy, materials processing, chemical and biomolecular sensing, security and environmental monitoring. However, this wavelength range is difficult to access directly using traditional laser materials and cavity implementations.
Embark on a transformative journey at the forefront of laser technology with our ground-breaking PhD opportunity, titled “Revolutionizing laser technology through multicore fibre innovation”. In an era where technological boundaries are continually redefined, fibre lasers stand out as the epitome of innovation, offering unparallel advantages with no moving parts or mirrors in the light-generating source.
This is an unparallel opportunity to redefine the landscape of distributed sensing systems and contribute to groundbreaking developments in healthcare, environment monitoring, and beyond.
Over the course of the project, the successful candidate will focus on development and characterisation of highly customized materials and feedstocks, which shall be then evaluated in laser-based fibre fabrication.
Embark on a ground-breaking Ph.D. journey poised to revolutionize the field of large aerial drone condition monitoring.