Post Doctoral Research Associate in Ultrafast Laser Writing of Photonic Structures for Astronomy

Grade 7, £29,541 to £36,298

The field of “Astrophotonics” is the emerging area where photonic principles are applied to instrumentation for astronomy, with the aim of developing more compact, stable, lower cost and more efficient instruments. As the field of astrophotonics has developed, it has become increasingly apparent that although astrophotonics can benefit from the decades of photonics research that have already taken place, in many cases astrophotonic applications require the development of novel photonic technologies. A good example of this is the so-called “photonic lantern” which remarkably facilitates the low-loss coupling of multimode celestial light into single mode photonic devices.

This exciting PDRA position, which is partially funded by the EU, and partially by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), will be focused on working to use the fabrication technology of “ultrafast laser writing” to fabricate three-dimensional photonic structures such as integrated Bragg-waveguides [1] multicore fibre couplers [2] and photonic lanterns [3] for applications in astronomy. During the course of this work, the successful applicant will have the opportunity (and indeed be expected) to work with our collaborators at the University of Sydney, the Institut de Planetologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble, the University of Bath, Durham University and the UK-Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh.

The successful applicant will be expected to assist in PhD student supervision. Full support will be given in terms of guaranteeing the maximum impact of the candidate’s work with careful supervision, in order to eventually lead the applicant towards a successful independent research career.

Applicants must have a PhD in Physics or Electrical Engineering, have a strong working knowledge and experimental background in one or more of the following fields: guided wave optics, ultrashort laser modification of materials, instrumentation development.

Starting date: 1st May 2013 – or as soon as possible thereafter.  The post is available for a period of 30 – 35 months.

 For further enquiries please contact Dr Robert R. Thomson (R.R.Thomson@hw.ac.uk )

[1] G. Brown et al, "Ultrafast laser inscription of Bragg-grating waveguides using the multiscan technique," Opt. Lett. 37, 491-493 (2012)

[2] R. R. Thomson et al, "Ultrafast laser inscription of a 121-waveguide fan-out for astrophotonics," Opt. Lett. 37, 2331-2333 (2012)

[3] R. R. Thomson et al, "Ultrafast laser inscription of an integrated photonic lantern," Opt. Express 19, 5698-5705 (2011)

For application details see our website www.hw.ac.uk/jobs by clicking on the Apply button below or contact the Human Resources Office, Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh EH14 4AS tel  0131-451-3022 (24 hours) email hr@hw.ac.uk   quoting Ref   287/01/13/     

Closing date:   13 May