PhD Projects

The PhD projects available for 2013-2014 entry are listed by research theme below, then by group. For detailed explanations of the projects please click on the group title links.

Nanophotonics and Metamaterials

Supervisors: Professor Nikolay Zheludev and Dr Kevin MacDonald

• Reconfigurable photonic metamaterials
• Dielectric optomechanical metamaterials
• Metamaterials for optical data procesing
• Super-focusing and beam shaping with metamaterials
• Metamaterials with tailored nonlinear optical properties
• Manipulating free-electron-to-light energy coupling at the nano-scale
• Controlling metamaterial properties with liquid crystals
• Graphene tunable metamaterials
     

Novel Glass & Fibre 

Supervisor: Professor Dan Hewak and Dr Kevin Huang 

• Chalcogenide optoelectronics
• New glasses for plasmonics and metamaterials
• Chemical vapour deposition of optoelectronic materials (with Dr Huang)
• High performance optical components for mid-infrared aerospace applications
  
  

Planar Optical Materials

Supervisors: Professor Peter Smith, Dr James Gates, Dr Christopher Holmes

• Planar waveguide devices for WDM applications
• Development of periodically poled nonlinear optical materials for efficient frequency conversion into the visible, mid-infrared and terahertz
• Planar Grating sensors for biological and chemical detection
• DLP Technology for adaptive optics
• Quantum lightwave circuits

Photonic, Electronic and Plasmonic Microstructured Optical Fibres

Supervisor: Dr Pier Sazio    

• Microstructured optical fibres as templates for the deposition of functional materials
• Microstructured optical fibers for the deposition of semiconductor materials with embedded electrodes for novel electro-optic devices
  
  

Advanced Fibre Technologies and Applications 

Supervisor: Prof D J Richardson  

• The development of next generation transmission fibres 
  and fibre amplifiers
• The fabrication and applications of holey/microstructured fibres
• Optical processing and transmission in future optical networks
• Next generation pulsed high power fibre lasers and amplifiers 
  and their applications 
• The physics and applications of optical combs – from precision time, frequency and spatial measurements to terahertz signal synthesis
  
  

Silica Fibre Fabrication 

Supervisor: Prof Jayanta Sahu

• New class of optical fibres for high power lasers
• Development of ultra-low loss transmission fibres
  
  

Computational Nonlinear Optics 

Supervisor: Dr P Horak 

• Optoacoustic effects in microstructured optical fibres
• Optomechanically reconfigurable fibres
• Large mode area fibre designs for next-generation high 
  power fibre lasers
• Nonlinear photonics in semiconductor waveguides and fibres
  
  

Optical Microfibre Devices and Sensors 

Supervisor: Dr G Brambilla 

• High intensity extreme light confinement
• Mid-IR light generation in silicate fibres
  
  

Advanced Solid State Lasers

Supervisor: Professor W A Clarkson 

• Power-scaling concepts for visible and ultraviolet fibre lasers
• Optical amplifier technology for ultrafast fibre lasers
• Advanced high power two-micron fibre lasers
• Hollow-beam lasers
• Ultrafast two-micron fibre lasers
  
  

Integrated Photonic Devices 

Supervisor: Prof James Wilkinson

• CMOS-compatible integrated photonic circuits
• Lab-on-a-Chip
  
  

Planar Waveguide and Slab Laser 

Supervisor: Prof D Shepherd and Dr J MacKenzie 

• Ultrafast multi-GHz waveguide lasers
• High-power integrated-photonic composites
  
  

Ultrafast Laser X-ray

Supervisor: Prof W S Brocklesby

• Development of ultrafast soft X-ray sources
  
  

Projects with Prof Michalis Zervas

Supervisor: Prof M N Zervas 

• Dynamics and nonlinear effects in high power fibre lasers
• Novel microresonators for advanced optical devices
  
  

Optical Fibre Communications

Supervisor: Professor Periklis Petropoulos

• Processing of ultra-high speed modern telecommunication signals
• Mid-Infrared to Near-Infrared wavelength conversion
      

Photonic systems, circuits and sensors 

Supervisor: Professor Goran Mashanovich 

• Germanium mid-infrared photonics
• High density Silicon Germanium integrated photonics 
  
   

Semi-conductor fibre devices for nonlinear photonics

Supervisor: Dr Anna Peacock

• Semiconductor microresonators for low threshold nonlinear optics
• Fiberised semiconductor devices for nonlinear photonics and applications
  
  

Optical Biosensors and Biophotonics

Supervisor: Professor Tracy Melvin 

• Optical/micorfluidic devices for the study of stem cells 
• Optical sorting for regenerative medicine applications 
• Raman spectrocopy and associated techniques for the detection of
   protein assemblies associated in degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's
  
  

Physical Optics

Supervisor: Professor Peter Kazansky 

• Nonlinear optics in optical fibers and glass waveguides