Degrees by Research
127
PhD or MPhil PhD: 3 years full-time; 5 years part-time MPhil: 2 years full-time; 3 years part-time Research Proposal
Applicants should give an indication of their general research field of interest, but are advised not to provide a detailed research proposal.
Entry Qualification
Good degree in physics or related discipline.
Contact
Research Admissions Dr B Sobnack Research Contact Mrs M Mistry E: physics.pgr@lboro.ac.uk T: +44 (0)1509 223301
Departmental Support and Training for Research Students All research students are provided with: ● desk and computer in a shared research student office or laboratory ● photocopying and inter-library loan facilities ● supervisor(s) with expertise in the selected research area and a Director of Research to provide additional guidance and pastoral support as well as opportunities to consult other departmental academic staff if appropriate. Research students: ● are expected to attend regular departmental research seminars ● are expected to attend training courses throughout their PhD to support their research ● may help support undergraduate teaching through employment as laboratory assistants or small group tutors
Research Themes Novel Materials
Novel materials including graphene, cuprates, manganites, nickelates, ruthenates, Invar and others with strongly correlated electrons and strong electron-phonon interactions.
Terahertz Superconducting and Semiconducting Electronics
The recent growing interest in terahertz science and technology is due to its many important applications in physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and medicine, including THz imaging, spectroscopy, tomography, medical diagnosis, health monitoring, environmental control, as well as chemical and biological identification.
Quantum Computing
In contrast to the “standard” Divincenzo paradigm, in which a sequence of oneand two-bit unitary operations evolves a collection of qubits from a known initial state to a state that encodes the output, an adiabatic quantum computer maintains a system of qubits in the ground state of a slowly varying Hamiltonian and is less prone to decoherence.
Spintronics
Our research is focused on the control and the use of spin degrees of freedom, on fundamentals of the development of spin electronic devices and on the possibility of injecting spin polarised currents. The well known Rashba effect plays a central role in this research.
Materials and Structures
Research has concentrated on the development and use of a range of novel high strain rate test equipment which places the department among the most comprehensively equipped high strain rate test laboratories in the UK. This equipment has been used to investigate the behaviour of polymers at high strain rates and has led to the discovery of unusual crystallisation phenomena at high rates and temperatures.
Biophysics and Psychophysics
Our research is focused on the modelling of biological processes and on the development of methods for their control. The research areas include neural networks, drug delivery physics, population dynamics and psychoacoustics.
Quantum Metamaterials
The project aims to make use of quantum metamaterials as a test bed for novel ideas and experiments relating to the foundations of the theory of quantum mechanics.
Graphene
In our research we yearn for new and exciting ways to unlock graphene’s and other twodimensional materials such as silicene, germanene and various topological insulators true potential. They harbour many unique properties, making them viable candidates for use in optoelectronic and semiconducting devices, which we are developing in the department. We study how these materials can be used to ‘trap’ light and alter the incident wavelength, forming the basis of the plasmonic devices. We also highlight upon graphene’s nonlinear optical response to an applied electric field, and the phenomenon of saturable absorption. We also design transistors, and exploit the idea of quantum tunnelling. Finally, we are developing high frequency devices, incorporating graphene which do not require a predefined band-gap.