PhD opportunities
PhD project for October 2025
Supervised by Prof Roland A Smith (Light Community)
Type – A blend of ~ 70% Experimental and 30% Numerical.
High power laser light propagating through a medium instantaneously change the local refractive index, driving an extreme focusing effect without needing a physical lens. This process can “run away” and self-generate hair-fine filaments of ultra-intense light. Filamentation in air can produce km long ionization tracks, recently used to guide lightning bolts, but the underlying process in much less well understood in denser (and more complex) media such as water.
This project will investigate water filamentation in the green light optimal transmission window of water over long (1-10m) distances and characterise ionization and the generation of new wavelengths. The project will include laboratory experiments driven by Imperial’s large multi-TW Cerberus laser system to deliver intense 0.5ps – 1ns “chirped” pulses which can self-compress by dispersion in water.
Experimental work will be linked to complex computer simulations with the aim of develop a predictive tool to model applications in remote, sensing, but a key challenge is dealing with “missing physics” as our experiments to date have thrown up a number of unexpected oddities.
UK Nationality required.
Funding – Funded by the UKs GANNET PhD training hub (generation-after-next technologies for applications in defence and security)