PhD, MPhil, MRes Physics

3.5 year PhD opportunity with Biomedical Engineering and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.

A three year PhD investigating the efficiency of transient non-thermal plasma discharges for different environmental applications is offered by the High Voltage Technologies (HVT) Research group within the Institute for Energy & Environment.

This is an exciting 42-month fully-funded PhD, supported by Innovate UK focusing on advanced robotic quality control inspection during metal additive manufacturing operations, directly aligned and supported by the Net Zero, Renewable, Nuclear, Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Marine, Defence and High-Value Manufacturing sectors.

This is an exciting 42-month fully-funded PhD focusing on the automated inspection of nuclear canisters at manufacture using novel sensor and inspection strategies, directly aligned to current and future Nuclear requirements.

This is an exciting 48-month fully-funded EngD investigating enhanced ultrasonic inspection directly at the point of manufacture to deliver high-quality components right, first time.

This is an exciting 42-month fully funded PhD position supported by EPSRC, Spirit AeroSystems, the world’s largest composite manufacturer, and National Manufacturing Institute of Scotland (NMIS). The project has training and travel budget.

Using commercially available frequency combs to develop new techniques for stand-off detection of molecular species at trace levels.

Development of high speed gas concentration measurement systems using diode lasers for use in combustion emission measurements

Active matter has developed into one of the most exciting interdisciplinary research areas. Following the spirit of R. Feynman ‘what I cannot create I do not understand’ our goal is to create smart artificial active matter and to broaden the material range and achieve novel (biomimetic) functionalities that pave the way to applications in the biomedical or environmental field.

The proposed project will use a variety of analytical and numerical methods to bring new understanding into a range of real-world problems involving thin films of both simple and complex fluids.

Matrix balancing aims to transform a nonnegative matrix A by a diagonal scaling by matrices D and E so that P = DAE has prescribed row and column sums. Historical motivation for achieving the balance has included interpreting economic data, preconditioning sparse matrices and understanding traffic circulation.

One of the most important areas of research to make quantum computers useful is developing practical quantum algorithms. In this project, you will tackle some of the many open problems that stand in the way of using quantum computers to speed up scientific computing. You will use both analytical and computational methods to carry out your research, including running algorithms on test bed quantum computers.

Next-generation manufacturing of high-value parts will require high bandwidth hardware to enable real-time digital process control. In a cross-disciplinary effort we will exploit the unique properties of microscopic light-emitting diodes to develop optical wireless communications demonstrators and integrate them into a robotic manufacturing system.

This project is focused on developing and applying next generation detectors for the scanning electron microscopy techniques of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and electron channelling contrast imaging (ECCI).

A project to develop and use a new super-resolution optical microscope to obtain very high spatial resolution images of fluorescently labelled live cells.

Motivated PhD candidates, ideally with a background in laser and/or beam driven plasma wakefield acceleration are required to help lay the foundations in the quest towards 5th generation light sources and ultra-compact electron accelerators - the time-resolved microscopes of the 21st century.

PhD position available to undertake frontier research in nanotechnology of noble metal nanoparticles.

An EPSRC funded studentship in theoretical quantum information, specifically the relationship between decoherence, non-classicality, and the efficacy of quantum information tasks.

This PhD project aims to develop a comprehensive suite of tools and techniques that will enable superresolution imaging of nanodiamonds in living tissue, with a particular emphasis on imaging neurons.

A fully-funded PhD studentship is available in high power laser-plasma physics, working within a vibrant team of experimentalists and theoreticians, to investigate the onset of a new regime of high-field relativistic plasmas.

PhDs are available in an exciting and challenging research area, with a vibrant group of experimentalists and theoreticians developing and applying ultra-compact accelerators and x-ray sources based on laser-plasma interactions.

This project will take advantage of the EPSRC strategic equipment Electron Probe MicroAnalyzer (EPMA) at the University of Strathclyde to investigate wide bandgap semiconductors (AlGaN, Ga2O3, and h-BN) materials and devices for far UV-C applications.

This PhD will investigate novel ways to laser cool two-electron atoms all the way to Bose-Einstein condensation – to provide new insight into the formation of condensates, and potential applications in precision measurements.

A fully-funded position to undertake research in the ground-breaking field of quantum sensing and measurement, after the first year specialising in Magnetometry.

A fully-funded position to undertake research in the ground-breaking field of quantum sensing and measurement, after the first year specialising in Atomic Clocks.

A fully-funded position to undertake research in the ground-breaking field of quantum sensing and measurement, after the first year specialising in Atom Interferometry.

We focus on new nonlinear regimes with input powers so low that they enable all-optical processing and the exploitation of the fundamental advantages of quantum technologies at the nanoscale.

Advances in microscopy allow imaging on scales ranging from single molecules to whole organism. This project involves developing a microscope that will allow images of whole invertebrates (likely C. Elegans nematode worms) be correlated with nanoscopic (super-reolution) images of sub-cellular regions within them.

This project is focussed on advanced modern image analysis and pattern recognition methods to study the microscopy and spectroscopy of semiconductor structures and devices. Developing automated and robust methods to look at images and video will revolutionise this area.

In this project we will investigate various approaches for on-demand engineering of trapped spin states in charged quantum dots through a series of coherent control experiments that will explore how the different approaches affect the performance of all optically operated universal single qubit gates.

Gallium oxide is an emerging semiconductor offering promises for applications in ultraviolet optical devices. The project aims to improve our understanding of the material, elucidate the mechanisms leading to its optical properties, and exploit the findings to produce better devices.

This project will develop new numerical techniques for studying many-body quantum systems far from equilibrium, exploring the possible phase transitions which can be realised.

Modelling of laser light propagating in micro-ring resonators in collaboration with experiments performed at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen (Germany). Applications of these devices are in atomic clocks, quantum technologies, telecommunication, GPS and integrated photonic circuits.

Free-Electron Lasers (FELs) use electron beams produced by particle accelerators to generate intense electromagnetic radiation from microwaves into the hard X-ray, which is of particular interest to a wide range of users. This project will look at developing new types of FEL output further enhancing their applications.

The development of quantum electronics in silicon carbide will be the main focus of this project. Through a balanced mix of academic and industrial research activities, the student will design, manufacture and test novel electronics relevant to the nascent fields of quantum computing and quantum sensing.

Structural imperfections in the crystalline materials used to make electronic and optoelectronic devices, can limit device performance and can lead to device failure. In this project the student will push the limits of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), a scanning electron microscopy technique, to investigate the structural properties of new materials such as AlGaN nanostructures in development for UV LEDs, or halide perovskites for next generation solar cells.

The project aims to optimise and stabilise laser-driven particle and radiation beams produced in intense laser-solid interactions, through the development and demonstration of a new machine learning platform. This new platform will be based on particle in cell simulations of the laser-plasma interaction physics and will be implemented on experiments at several state-of-the-art high power laser facilities.

A fully-funded position to undertake research on quantum fluids. You'll work closely with the supervisor to develop a state-of-the-art experimental apparatus to explore vortex dynamics in binary superfluids, with a particular emphasis on reduced dimensionality where quantum effects are enhanced.

This project will be to conduct theoretical and computational studies of the performance of satellite quantum key distribution and the operation of constellations to service both terrestrial and space networks.

This EngD studentship will be primarily based at and supervised by the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (Fh-CAP) with collaboration and academic supervision from Strathclyde’s Institute of Photonics (IoP, part of the Dept of Physics). This studentship is part of the Applied Photonics Centre for Doctoral Training (https://cdtphotonics.hw.ac.uk). This CDT is led by Heriot Watt University with Strathclyde as one of the partners.

This project is focused on exploring scalability of atomic quantum hardware by overcoming barriers to achieving high fidelity coherent control and entanglement using both trapped ions and neutral atoms. Working in close collaboration between experimental teams at NPL and Strathclyde, we are seeking to recruit two PhD students to address the shared challenges in performing coherent control and state readout in these atom-based hardware platforms.

Plasma photonic structures provide new media for manipulating ultra-high intensity lasers. The PhD project will investigate these plasma structures experimentally and using numerical modelling methods. This challenging project will apply terawatt to petawatt laser beams at the University of Strathclyde and other national and international facilities to create time dependent structures and apply them as optical components and metamaterials for the next generation of exawatt to zettawatt lasers.

The project will develop advanced communication solutions to enable the non-line-of-sight (non-LOS) operation of deep ultraviolet (DUV) laser based Optical wireless communications (OWC). Advanced machine-learning (ML) based algorithm will be developed to enable high-speed operation of sensitive receivers.

Strathclyde Research Studentship Scheme (SRSS) doctoral studentships are available annually for excellent students and excellent research projects.

There are two main sources of funding:

• Central University funding
• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - Doctoral Training Partnership (EPSRC - DTP) funding.

The SRSS 2023/2024 competition will open in Autumn 2022 and students successful in this competition will commence studies in October 2023. Faculties will set their own internal deadlines for the competition.

Academics/Supervisors make the applications for this scheme and there are various deadlines across the Department/Schools and Faculties, therefore, in the first instance, all interested students should contact the Department/School where they would like to carry out their research.