Silicon Photonics for Ocean Pollutant Monitoring

This project aims to develop a new class of marine sensors based on cutting-edge silicon photonics research. The oceans act as an environmental buffer by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activity. Ocean heat is at record levels and there have been widespread marine heatwaves. The past decade was exceptional in terms of global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities. Sea water is 26 percent more acidic than at the start of the industrial era, which poses an extreme hazard. The ocean absorbs about 38% of the CO2 released in the atmosphere. There is, therefore, a pressing need to measure and quantify levels of concentrations of CO2 and identify its origin.

In a collaboration between the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), and Imperial College, a study of the detection of ocean pollutants such CO2 and methane will be carried out by designing, fabricating and testing sensors for monitoring their unique spectral absorption fingerprints in order to understand their evolution and life cycle from the seabed to the atmosphere and vice versa. Silicon chips will be fabricated in state-of-the-art clean rooms in the ZI, and characterisation will be performed in the ORC photonics labs. Some experiments will be conducted at the NOC's facilities, where sensors will be integrated in submarines and gliders. The aim is to miniaturise the sensors, reduce their power consumption and to reach the required limits of detection.