Fibre laser and special fibre technologies have impacted a number of industrial sectors, enhancing manufacturing, healthcare, defence, communication, and energy systems. They have provided the advanced manufacturing, imaging and sensing tools to revolutionise entire industries such as the car, aerospace, oil, defence and civil engineering industries. And yet, continued advancements in fibre and fibre laser technologies are expected to drive further innovations and transformative applications in the future.
Our research will focus on removing the technology and science roadblocks, develop novel optical materials, address the underlying fundamental physics to fully exploit the massive parallelism offered uniquely by the optical fibre technology, utilise the vectorial nature of light – by optimally combining spatial, polarisation and wavelength attributes – and embed advanced deep-learning algorithms to solve the multi-dimensional complexity control problem.
Our research vision is to further revolutionise manufacturing by developing the next generation of reconfigurable, scalable, resilient, power efficient, disruptive ‘smart’ fibre laser tools, covering an extended range of wavelengths (from mid-IR to UV and EUV) suitable for the upcoming Digital Manufacturing era, as well as the demanding medical and biosciences sectors. Our advanced fibre/fibre laser technology can also contribute into the promising quantum revolution by providing innovative solutions for quantum metrology and the development of precise and ultra-stable sources for quantum-computing. Innovative specialty fibres, supplemented by advanced AI for control and interrogation, can also revolutionise smart distributed fibre sensor systems, for the aerospace, the traditional oil and the fast-growing renewable energy industries.
Our longer-term research ambition is to catapult specialty fibres and fibre lasers to places no laser has been before, thus enabling them to not only manufacture our future goods and make UK a more prosperous nation, but also to protect against aerial threats, build the next generation of efficient, compact particle accelerators, clean-up space debris, treat nuclear waste, and all-in-all make the world a better, cleaner, greener, and safer place.