Nanophotonics & Metamaterials 

Supervisors: Professor Nikolay Zheludev and Dr Kevin MacDonald

Projects:

• Nonlinear and switchable metamaterials

• Opto-mechanical forces in nanostructures
• Controlling light at the nano-scale

Novel Glass & Fibre

Supervisor: Professor Dan Hewak

Projects:

• New Glasses for plasmonics and metamaterials
• Chalcogenide optoelectronics
• Chemical vapour deposition of optoelectronic materials
• High performance optical components for the mid-infrared

Nonlinear & Microstructured Optical Materials

Supervisor: Dr Sakelaris Mailis

Projects

• Development of ultra-smooth free standing whispering gallery mode nonlinear electro-optic micro-resonators for sensing applications
• Development of integrated nonlinear ring and disc electro-optic microresonators based on domain engineered lithium niobate waveguide superstructures
• Ferroelectric substrates for life science interface

Laser-Induced Forward Transfer

Supervisor: Professor R W Eason and Dr C L Sones

Projects:

• Laser Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) printing for the development of biological/chemical sensing systems

• Laser Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) printing for the development of piezoelectric and thermoelectric energy harvesting devices, actuators and sensors

Pulsed Laser Deposition

Supervisor: Professor R W Eason

Projects:

• Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) for growth of designer thin film optical waveguides

Integrated Photonic Devices 

Supervisor: Professor James Wilkinson

Projects:

• Raman Sensor Chips for Point-of-Care Diagnostics

• Spectroscopy Lab-on-a-Chip

Planar Optical Materials

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

Projects:

• 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

Optical Biosensors & Biophotonics

Supervisor: Dr Tracy Melvin

Projects:

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

Silica Fibre Fabrication

Supervisor: Dr Jayanta  Sahu

Projects:

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

Advanced Fibre Technologies & Applications

Supervisor: Professor D J Richardson

Projects:

• The development of next generation transmission fibres and fibre amplifiers (Multiple potential projects in conjunction with Drs F Poletti and S U Alam)
• Optical processing and transmission in future optical networks (In conjunction with Dr Periklis Petropoulos)
• The physics and applications of phase sensitive optical signal processing (In conjunction with Dr Periklis Petropoulos)
• Next generation pulsed high power fibre lasers and amplifiers and their applications (In conjunction with Dr Shaiful Alam)
• Ultrahigh peak and average power femtosecond fibre lasers for coherent X-ray generation (In conjunction with Dr Jonathan Price)
• Nonlinear optics in multimode fibres (In conjunction with Dr Peter Horak/Dr Shaiful Alam)
• The physics and applications of optical combs – from precision time, frequency and spatial measurements to Terahertz signal synthesis (In conjunction with Dr Radan Slavik)
• The fabrication and applications of holey/micro-structured fibres (In conjunction with Dr M Petrovich/Mr J Hayes)
• Nonlinear fibre optics for future telecommunications networks (In conjunction with Dr Jonathan Price)

Computational Nonlinear Optics 

Supervisor: Dr P Horak

Projects:

• Mechanical and acoustic effects in microstructured optical fibres
• Nonlinear pulse propagation in multimode semiconductor waveguides and fibres

Optical Fibre Communications 

Supervisor: Dr P Petropoulos  

Projects:

• Processing of ultra-high speed modern telecommunication signals
• Mid-infrared to near-infrared wavelength conversion

Photonic, Electronic and Plasmonic Microstructured Optical Fibres

Supervisor: Dr Pier Sazio  

Projects:

• Microstructured optical fibres as templates for the deposition of functional materials

Semiconductor Fibre Devices for Nonlinear Photonics

Supervisor: Dr Anna Peacock

Projects:

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

Advanced Solid-State Sources

Supervisor: Professor W A Clarkson

Projects:

• Power-scaling concepts for fibre lasers and amplifiers
• Cryogenic hybrid fibre-bulk lasers
• High power super-fluorescent fibre sources and their applications 
• Hollow-beam lasers
• Advanced high power two-micron fibre lasers

High Power Fibre Lasers

Supervisor: Professor Johan Nilsson

Projects:

• Single-frequency fibre amplifiers
• Phased-array lasers & coherent beam combination
• Nonlinear wavelength conversion of high-power fibre sources
• Cladding-pumped Raman fibre devices
• Nonlinear wavelength conversion of high-power fibre sources
• Numerical fibre optimisation
• Fibre-Laser Imaging of gas Turbine Exhaust Species (FLITES)

Professor Michalis Zervas

Supervisor: Professor M N Zervas

Projects:

• Novel Microresonators for Advanced Integrated Optical Devices
• Dynamics of High Power Fibre Lasers

Fibre Bragg Gratings

Supervisor: Dr M Ibsen

Projects:

• Bragg grating design, device fabrication and tuneable Bragg grating technologies Design and applications of low-noise high-power single-frequency
• Bragg grating all-fibre lasers for new wavelength regimes
• Femtosecond-writing of periodic structures in optical fibres
• Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and biomedical imaging
• Bragg gratings for use in medical applications
• Photonic fibre devices based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and Graphene

Planar Waveguide and Slab Lasers

Supervisor: Dr Jacob Mackenzie

Projects:

• High-power integrated-photonic composites
• Planar waveguide visible lasers
• Waveguide power-amplifiers for CO2 measurement from space

Physical Optics

Supervisor: Professor Peter Kazansky

Projects:

• Nonlinear optics in optical fibres and glass waveguides
• Integrated quantum optics
• Direct write of 3D photonic structures and advanced ultrafast laser material processing
• Nano-composite materials for photonic applications
• 3D micro- and nano-optics by femtosecond laser direct writing

Ultrafast Laser X-Ray 

Supervisor: Dr W.S. Brocklesby

Project:

• Coherent X-ray imaging