Research group

Smart Lasers and Special Fibres

Laser lights

Our research vision is to revolutionise manufacturing in the digital era by developing the next generation of reconfigurable, scalable, resilient, power efficient, disruptive ‘smart’ fibre laser tools for the demanding medical and biosciences sectors.

About

Fibre laser and special fibre technologies have impacted a number of industrial sectors, enhancing manufacturing, healthcare, defence, communication, and energy systems. They have provided the advanced manufacturing, imaging and sensing tools to revolutionise entire industries such as the car, aerospace, oil, defence and civil engineering industries. And yet, continued advancements in fibre and fibre laser technologies are expected to drive further innovations and transformative applications in the future.

Our research will focus on removing the technology and science roadblocks, develop novel optical materials, address the underlying fundamental physics to fully exploit the massive parallelism offered uniquely by the optical fibre technology, utilise the vectorial nature of light by optimally combining spatial, polarisation and wavelength attributes – and embed advanced deep-learning algorithms to solve the multi-dimensional complexity control problem.   

Our advanced fibre/fibre laser technology can also contribute into the promising quantum revolution by providing innovative solutions for quantum metrology and the development of precise and ultra-stable sources for quantum-computing. Innovative specialty fibres, supplemented by advanced AI for control and interrogation, can also revolutionise smart distributed fibre sensor systems, for the aerospace, the traditional oil and the fast-growing renewable energy industries.    

Our longer-term research ambition is to catapult specialty fibres and fibre lasers to places no laser has been before, thus enabling them to not only manufacture our future goods and make UK a more prosperous nation, but also to protect against aerial threats, build the next generation of efficient, compact particle accelerators, clean-up space debris, treat nuclear waste, and all in all make the world a better, cleaner, greener, and safer place.

People, projects and publications

People

Dr Matthew Praeger

Senior Research Fellow
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Dr Meng Ding

Research Fellow
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Professor Michalis Zervas PhD

Professor of Optical Communications
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Dr Morten Ibsen

Associate Professor
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Dr Peter Horak

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • Theory and simulation of nonlinear and quantum optics
  • Laser pulse propagation and manipulation in optical fibres
  • Quantum technology, integrated optics, optical resonators

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Pier-John Sazio

Principal Research Fellow
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Professor Radan Slavik

Professorial Fellow-Research

Research interests

  • In recent years, there have been significant developments in lightwave technologies enabling wide exploitation of optical phase, as exemplified in particular by the dawn of Coherent Optical Communications - the key enabler for the growth in the capacity of the Internet. This is due to many key breakthroughs in laser technology (low-noise low-cost and compact lasers), new revolutionary concepts that have recently  been introduced (e.g., the Optical Frequency Comb, the significance of which was demonstrated by the award of a Nobel Prize in 2005), and significant advances in electronics that, thanks to the increased speeds now possible, can accommodate the processing of very complicated coherent (amplitude + phase) signals.
  • Another exciting field is Hollow Core Optical fibres, which guides ligth in a central hole surrounded by a microstructure that prevents light escaping from the core. Although known for over 20 years, only very recently their fabrication enabled them to use their full potential. 

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Rand Ismaeel

Senior Research Fellow
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Dr Richard Svejkar

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Solid-state lasers
  • Tm-fibre lasers
  • Near- and mid-infrared lasers
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Dr Timothy Lee

Senior Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Distributed optical fiber sensors
  • Optical fibre
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Related research institutes, centres and groups

Related research institutes, centres and groups

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Contact us

Email Professor Michalis Zervas with your enquiries.