The Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT) brings together over 100 academics, postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, visitors, technicians and administrators working on research projects in:
- Optical fibre communications
- Non-linear photonics
- Fibre lasers
- Biomedical optics
- Optical fibre devices
- Nanophotonics.
Supported by £28m in research grants, the Institute comprises a mixture of theoreticians, modelers and experimentalists with facilities housed in more than 30 laboratories, built in 2017 with an investment of over £7m. We collaborate with more than 100 institutions, all over the world.
As a postgraduate you will join a cohort of approximately two dozen PhD students in this supportive research environment, which encourages excellence and a collaborative (often interdisciplinary) approach to solving the major research problems. Our research students and postdoctoral researchers have progressed to work in industry and in academia around the world as professors, senior managers and industrial research leaders.
Opportunities
- PhD (self-funded)
If you are interested in completing a PhD programme in this area please contact us by email: photonics@aston.ac.uk to discuss your proposal or find out more about current opportunities.
- Taught MSc
We offer 12-month, full-time postgraduate programmes relating to telecommunications, photonics, Internet and data network technologies commencing annually in October. Our Masters Level programmes have been designed in partnership with the UK's leading telecommunications organisations, our programme has the full support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Federation of the Electronics Industry (FEI) Telecommunications and Radio Council.
MSc in Wireless Communications and Wireless Networking prepares students for an intellectually challenging career as a qualified engineer
We also offer Distance and Part Time Masters Study options for our MSc programmes.
- MSc by Research
We can supervise projects in the following areas:
Possible projects in photonics:
- Laser technology for blood pressure measurement
- Cardiorespiratory sensing
- Fibre-optic sensing technology for the oil and gas industry
- Sensing for aerospace
- Low loss polymer fibre grating sensors
- Composite material sensing with embedded sensors
- Gas sensing
- Nonlinear pulse shaping for pulse generation and optical processing
- Advanced microstructured waveguides for optical networks
- Nonlinear signal processing for telecommunications
- Super-channel transponders for ultra-high speed long-haul transmission
- Advanced multi-mode fibre transmission systems for data centre applications
- Femtosecond laser induced diamond nanostructures for photonics
- applications.
Possible projects in wireless communications:
- Quantitative analysis of failure in Wireless Sensor networks. Wireless sensor networks will form a backbone for the "Internet of Things" vision for the future. As the applications develop there will be a need to consider the network characteristics as part of the overall functional safety design of systems. The aim of this project is to study how node failures in a wireless sensor network affect an overall system failure rate for different network topologies and protocols.
- Linear Topology Wireless Sensor Networks. There are numerous applications for wireless sensor networks which require linear network topologies. These include the monitoring of oil pipelines, power lines and railway and roadside monitoring. The aim of this project will be to examine how well current network protocols operate in these scenarios and to develop and optimise a protocol optimised specifically for them.
Possible projects in Nanotechnology:
- Diamond based electronic devices for harsh environments
- Nanodiamond particles for biomedical applications
- Femtosecond laser induced diamond nanostructures for photonics applications.
Possible projects in Applied Physics:
- Numerical modelling of femtosecond laser-matter interaction.
