Current research degree projects
Explore our current postgraduate research degree and PhD opportunities.
453 research degree projects
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Photonics and optoelectronics
Environment diagnosis using Intelligent optical sensing
Global climate change is the biggest challenge faced by humanity. Not many people realise that most of the data at the scientist disposal is sparse and limited. It is sufficient for evaluating trends, but falls short in capability of tracking real time processes. This information is essential for scientists, policy makers and whole society to fully understand current situation. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
Ocean’s Methane sensing using novel surface plasmon resonance technology
Ocean monitoring is a critical need, and it is closely related to human survival: from the long-term impact on global climate change to sustainable development of ocean resources. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
Chip-based photonic devices for quantum technology
We are looking for a PhD student to join our interdisciplinary team of students, postdocs, and senior researchers developing chip-based, microscale optics for advancing quantum technologies. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
Greenhouse gas detection using silicon photonics platform
This exciting multidisciplinary PhD project aims to develop a new class of marine sensors based on cutting-edge MID-IR silicon photonics research. The ocean, which acts as an environmental buffer by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activity such as burning fossil fuels and changing land use (e.g. deforestation), is paying a heavy price. Ocean heat is at record levels and there have been widespread marine heatwaves. The past decade was exceptional in terms of global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities. Sea water is 26 percent more acidic than at the start of the industrial era, which poses an extreme hazard. The ocean absorbs about 38% of the CO2 released in the atmosphere. As atmospheric CO2 increases, the amount absorbed by the ocean also increases. When CO2 is absorbed by seawater, a series of chemical reactions occur resulting in the increased concentration of hydrogen ions and acidification. This process has far reaching implications for the ocean and the creatures that live there. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
High-power fibre lasers for visible wavelengths
This PhD project aims to investigate a route to high-power visible sources through cladding pumping of RE-doped silica fibres using GaN-LDs. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
Bismuth-doped fibre amplifiers for extended transmission bands in optical communications
Global internet traffic has been growing exponentially over the past two decades with a predicted growth rate of around 40% year-on-year. This growth is driven primarily by bandwidth-hungry applications such as cloud computing, Telemedicine, and 4K live streaming and is expected to continue in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G. However, the present optical fibre communication network’s capacity is solely based on the 11THz (C and L bands) gain bandwidth of erbium (Er) doped fibre amplifiers (EDFA) invented three decades ago. The scaling of the overall transmission capacity requires next-generation optical fibre amplifiers with ultra-broad gain bandwidths to further utilise the low-loss window offered by the solid- and hollow-core silica optical fibres. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
Integrated ultra-high-Q ring resonators
Integrated ring resonators are a key component in photonics and will be an enabling technology in several areas, including the stabilisation of atom trap clocks, rotation sensors and narrow-linewidth lasers. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
Unlocking the Future of High-Capacity Ground-to-Satellite Communications
High-capacity ground-to-satellite communications have long relied on microwaves for data transmission, as they have since the very first communications satellites were launched. However, the surge in demand for data-intensive digital services and the evolution of sophisticated satellite-borne sensors have pushed microwave links to their limit, transforming them into a critical data transmission bottleneck. -
Photonics and optoelectronics | Electronics and computer science
High-performance computer simulation of laser-driven X-ray microscopy
New femtosecond fibre laser-based ultrafast pulse sources and novel hollow-core optical fibres have the potential to produce brighter and shorter-wavelength X-ray pulses. This project will investigate theoretically and numerically how these new sources can be developed and optimised, in parallel with the experimental work in our labs. -
Photonics and optoelectronics
Silicon photonic memories
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship to be undertaken within the silicon photonics group at the University of Southampton. The successful applicants will join a world leading research group of more than 50 postgraduate students and researchers working on silicon photonics technologies and photonic interconnects technologies in close collaboration with academia and industry. The project will be undertaken as part of a €10M research effort ongoing within the two Horizon Europe EU projects Octapus and Ambrosia.