###Widely tuneable photonic integrated optical phase lock loop for atmospheric sensing
Project ID: 2228bd1028 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Information and Communication Technologies
UCL Lead department: Electronic and Electrical Engineering (EEE)
Lead Supervisor: Lalitha Ponnampalam
Project Summary:
This research will be within the recently awarded EPSRC Open Fellowship ‘PLANET’ (EP/W022249/1) in which the aim is to demonstrate the feasibility of using photonic integration technology to realise low cost, high precision air pollution sensors to monitor the atmospheric constituents in real time. The traditional and more accurate air quality (AQ) monitoring instrumentation are large, complex and costly, and are not suitable for high spatial density sensor networks. Recently developed low-cost sensors enabled observations at high spatial resolution in real-time, however, their measurement data are poor quality as they are highly dependent on atmospheric conditions. Hence, to accurately monitor the AQ across the globe in real time, a step-change in technology is needed. As most of the atmospheric gases have absorption lines in the 0.1 to 3 THz region, photonics based high-resolution terahertz (THz) spectroscopy can become a fundamental technique to identify air pollutants with high precision. To deliver low-cost, compact and versatile system, this project will develop advanced photonic integrated, widely tuneable optical phase lock loop (OPLL) to generate high spectral purity (100’s of Hz) THz signal and for tuning across the absorption lines of interest. This research will be in collaboration with NPL, RAL-Space, ESA, UCL Department of Chemistry and MSSL. The student will be trained in the design and testing of integrated RF circuits, OPLLs and THz spectroscopy instrumentation to investigate their use in future AQ monitoring networks, writing deliverable reports, communicating effectively with the research team and the collaborating institutions and publishing in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Applicants should have a degree in Physics or electronic and electrical engineering with a minimum of a 2:1 and clear enthusiasm for research. Successful candidates will have some experience on experimental work in either photonics, physics or electronics; theoretical modelling; and scientific computer programming (e.g. MATLAB, Python, C++).