About the project
In this project you will be working with a large research team in Southampton and with our colleagues from the University of Texas, USA on heterogeneous integration of silicon photonics devices with barium titanate (BaTiO3 or BTO), a material that has one of the largest modulation effects, using mass manufacturable techniques and new design ideas.
Motivation
Data centres are consuming huge amount of electrical power and contribute to carbon emission as much as the entire airline industry. Optical links are therefore being installed in data centres to enable ever increasing data traffic and to reduce the power consumption. A key device in such optical links is an optical modulator that encodes electrical signals onto an optical carrier. Several other important areas such as LiDAR for autonomous cars, programmable photonic circuits, quantum computing and environmental sensors need better optical modulators that can reduce power consumption.
Research environment
You will have access to one of the best academic cleanrooms in Europe and state of the art photonics laboratories in the largest photonics centre in the UK. You will collaborate with experts across various fields and gain experience in the design, fabrication and characterisation of photonic circuits.
A comprehensive training will be available for improving your technical and soft skills.
You will contribute to technologies that will shape the future of communications and sensing.
More information about the wider Silicon Photonics group at the University of Southampton.
