Explore our current postgraduate research degree and PhD opportunities.
In the last decade, nanophotonics has emerged as one of the most important research fields in optics. A tiny nano-object plays the role of a nanoantenna, when excited by a light source, it scatters light in the surrounding environment in one or more directions that depend on its geometry and material. An important issue that has not been fully understood yet is how to control the directionality and power of this scattered radiation. The scope of this PhD project is to advance our knowledge in nanophotonics by designing and fabricating nanoantennas that allow full control of the scattered field at the nanoscale. Single nanoantennas with arbitrary shape as well as arrays of coupled nanoantennas will be designed, fabricated and tested.
In this project you will investigate the mechanism of how fungi rewire cellular signalling and metabolism to rapidly adapt to lethal levels of stress. The work will involve live cell imaging, super resolution imaging, molecular biology, and proteomics. You will also perform metabolic analysis on populations of yeast and live cells. The project has implications for microbial drug resistance, virulent fungi such as Candida, and chemotherapy resistance in cancer cells.
Semiconductor photonics is fast becoming one of the most active areas of research, offering optoelectronic solutions for a wide range of applications not only in telecoms, but also in medicine, imaging, spectroscopy, and sensing. Within this field, a subdivision that is gaining increased momentum is semiconductor nonlinear photonics as the materials display a number of important nonlinear effects that can be used to generate and process signals at ultrafast speeds.
Laser modes with a doughnut-shaped beam profile can have many unique properties, including axially-symmetric polarisation (azimuthal or radial) or orbital angular momentum. As a result, these beams have found use in a diverse range of applications from ‘laser tweezers’ to laser processing of materials. In spite of their attractive properties, generating these beams with the required purity and at high power levels is very challenging.
In this project you will be developing lateral-flow-style tests for in-the-field quantification of macronutrients in seawater, making use of metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) as the sensing element. MOFs are crystalline porous solids that can be rationally designed as receptors for specific molecules, and the project team has already developed protocols for preparing MOF-based materials for lateral flow devices.
The aim of this project is to use computational modelling in combination with experimental data to improve our understanding of placental antibody transfer, in close collaboration between Engineering and Medicine.
A fully funded industrial studentship is available for research in the area of decentralised and distributed active noise and vibration control. Although active noise and vibration control is now a relatively mature technology, with commercial systems in headphones, cars and aircrafts, it is not straightforward to apply to large-scale applications with widely distributed control sources and error sensors.
We are inviting applications for a PhD studentship in Human Factors within the Transportation Research Group as part of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) project.
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship funded by the National Grid to conduct research at the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory on subjects related to transmission of electrical energy, renewable energy generation and electrical insulation materials.
Undertake a PhD on distributed Raman amplification, a topic at the intersection between optical telecommunications, optical amplification, and optical nonlinearity. Develop techniques for high accuracy link power profile symmetrisation using multi-pump, high order distributed Raman amplification.