Current research degree projects
Explore our current postgraduate research degree and PhD opportunities.
Explore our current postgraduate research degree and PhD opportunities.
Two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted global interest for atomically thin next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices, opening up exciting opportunities for technological applications at the monolayer limit. Their extraordinary properties could revolutionise areas ranging from printed electronics to life sciences, imaging and quantum technologies to name just a few. However, the synthesis of these materials is often complex and capital intensive, relying mainly on vacuum based processing tools.
This project will develop new concepts of optical imaging, metrology and device functionality at the atomic (picometre) scale, leveraging recent advances in topology, the structuring of optical fields, metamaterials, and artificial intelligence - see “The Birth of Picophotonics”.
A PhD position is available as part of a new Centre of Excellence called Light and Electrochemical Activated Processes for Chemical Industries (LEAP). The intention of LEAP is to coordinate the University of Southampton’s distinctive strengths in photonic materials and chemistry to tackle the challenge of decarbonising the chemical industry. The initiative brings together academics from Chemistry, Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and the Zepler Institute that will improve our fundamental understanding of these complex processes and develop engineered solutions that can be applied at scale.
The balance among elastic, electromagnetic and quantum forces changes dramatically at the nanometre scale. This project will explore the remarkable range of functional materials and devices that can be reconfigured with light and electromagnetic forces.
Time crystals are an eagerly sought phase of matter in which time-translation symmetry is broken. This project will explore nanophotonic structures that can be driven to a state possessing all key features of a time crystal. Such media offer exciting applications in a new generation of photonic devices- see “The Birth of Picophotonics”.
Advances in lasers now allow the laser-based processing of almost any material. Innovation in this field is now therefore becoming heavily focussed on making existing processing techniques more precise and efficient.
A new area of imaging has opened up, using coherent light to illuminate objects, and computer algorithms to analyse the scattered light and generate images. Developments in ultrafast lasers have made sources of coherent soft X-rays possible in the lab, rather than relying on large-scale installations like synchrotrons. The combination of these two techniques has been successful in producing a new generation of X-ray microscopes, and at Southampton we have been at the forefront of this development. In particular, we have chosen areas of biology where imaging below the 100nm length scale can provide new information about processes occurring within cells.