All PhD Projects:
Supervisor: Dr Milos Nedeljkovic
Co-Supervisors: Professor Goran Mashanovich, Professor Matthew Mowlem
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 aim of this project will be to develop photonic integrated circuits for methane sensing, operating at mid-infrared wavelengths where the gas strongly absorbs light. It will involve 1) evaluating photonic circuit architectures for different sensing scenarios, 2) designing electro-optic devices and circuits through simulation, 3) fabricating them in Southampton’s world class cleanroom, 4) experimentally measuring their performance, and 5) implementing opto-electronic signal processing for extracting data from the sensors.
We are looking for an enthusiastic candidate with a background in electronics, physics or photonics. The applicant would join a cutting-edge research group in the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, and work in the state-of-the-art cleanroom facilities and photonic device characterisation laboratories at the ORC. They would work in cooperation with postdoctoral researchers employed on the £5.8 million project “MISSION” (Mid- Infrared Silicon Photonic Sensors for Healthcare and Environmental Monitoring), and with academic and industrial collaborators with interests in gas sensing.
Supervisor: Professor Goran Mashanovich
Co-Supervisors: Dr Milos Nedeljkovic, Dr Robert Halir (University of Malaga)
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-IR is a new frontier for integrated photonics that requires the use of new waveguide materials and geometries, and new solutions will therefore be needed for mid-IR silicon photonics sensors. The project would involve collaboration with Dr Robert Halir from the University of Malaga in Spain and Professor Pavel Cheben from the National Research Council of Canada, who have been leading developers of metamaterial engineered photonic devices, which will be applied in this project. The project would involve the design, fabrication, and testing of waveguide, couplers and detectors and their integration into sensing systems, making use of the Optoelectronics Research Centre’s world leading cleanroom fabrication and photonic device characterisation facilities. The successful applicant would spend extensive time at the collaborating institutions (University of Malaga and NRC Canada).
We are looking for an enthusiastic candidate with a background in electronics, physics or photonics. The applicant would join a cutting-edge research group in the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, and work in the state-of-the-art cleanroom facilities and photonic device characterisation laboratories at the ORC. They would work in cooperation with postdoctoral researchers employed on the £5.8 million project “MISSION” (Mid- Infrared Silicon Photonic Sensors for Healthcare and Environmental Monitoring), and with six academic and six industrial collaborators.
Supervisor: Professor Goran Mashanovich
Co-supervisors: Dr Milos Nedeljkovic, Anu Agarwal (MIT)
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.
A key challenge for Silicon Photonics circuits operating at mid-infrared wavelengths is how to integrate detectors with large sensitivity/detectivity at longer wavelengths. This project addresses such an important challenge by investigating two main approaches: monolithic and hybrid integration.
In collaboration with the Photonics group from MIT, USA, mid-IR detectors suitable for gas detection will be grown directly on the silicon platform. Another approach that will be investigated is to flip-chip detectors on the silicon platform. The project would involve the design, fabrication, and testing of detectors and their integration with the silicon photonics circuits making use of the University of Southampton’s world leading cleanroom fabrication and photonic device characterisation facilities.
We are looking for an enthusiastic candidate with a background in electronics, physics or photonics. The applicant would join a cutting-edge research group in the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, and work in the state-of-the-art cleanroom facilities and photonic device characterisation laboratories at the ORC. They would work in cooperation with postdoctoral researchers employed on the £5.8 million project “MISSION” (Mid- Infrared Silicon Photonic Sensors for Healthcare and Environmental Monitoring), and with six academic and six industrial collaborators.