Title: Photonic Integration and Advanced Data Storage

The convergence of photonics, electronics and advanced materials facilitated by nanofabrication is an exciting research environment. Our objective is the science and engineering to provide highly manufacturable photonic integration technologies relevant to a wide spectrum of end-users - from data storage, to telecommunications, to biophotonics.

To increase the capacity of hard disk drives for 'cloud' computing, new technology is required. Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which uses electromagnetic energy to locally heat the disk to ease the process of writing data on to it, is favourite. HAMR requires integration of photonic components such as lasers, waveguides and plasmonic antennas into the recording head. This will drive low-cost photonic integration and plasmonic technology into other industries and applications.

Students embark on a four year programme - with an emphasis of additional technical skills, management and leadership training in the outset before selecting their substantive research project in early summer of their first year.

The programme will lead to a Doctoral degree jointly awarded by Queen's University Belfast and University of Glasgow.