News
Join the quantum technology revolution
The University of Sheffield is seeking to make four new appointments in the field of Quantum Technologies as part of its strategic investment plan. Three of these posts will be in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the fourth post will be in the Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering.
Further information about all four posts can be found on the University of Sheffield 'Jobs' web pages or by clicking the links below. The closing date for all four posts is 22 January 2024.
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY
UOS039475 - Professor in Quantum Technologies
UOS039464 - Early Career Research Fellow in Quantum Technologies
UOS039467 - Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Quantum Technologies
The Department of Physics & Astronomy (ranked first in the UK in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework) is seeking to appoint outstanding academics/early career researcher to work within our Quantum Physics and Technology Research Group. The group currently has 8 professors, 1 senior lecturer, 4 early-career research fellows, 17 post-doctoral researchers, and 20 PhD students. We work on experimental and theoretical projects in quantum physics including: III-V quantum dots, single-photon sources, polaritons, 2D materials, topological photonics, photonic quantum technologies, quantum error correction, quantum imaging and quantum metrology. We are supported by a broad base of research council grants and are part of the EPSRC Quantum Communications Hub. The group has state-of-the-art optical laboratories, and the University hosts world-class facilities in semiconductor epitaxial growth and nanofabrication.
We welcome applications from aspiring leaders with expertise in either experimental or theoretical physics. We are seeking to make appointments to complement and strengthen our present research portfolio but will also consider applications in the broader field of quantum technologies should candidates with suitable experience present themselves.
For informal enquiries please contact Prof Mark Fox - m.fox@sheffield.ac.uk
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONIC AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
UOS039476 - Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Quantum Technologies
As Lecturer/Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Assistant/Associate Professor) in Electronic and Electrical Engineering you will have the opportunity to develop a program of research in quantum technology with colleagues in the Department’s Semiconductor Devices and Materials group, the National Epitaxy Facility, hosted in the Department, and with colleagues in Physics as part of the Sheffield Quantum Centre. We are looking for candidates within the field of Semiconductor Quantum Technologies, which may include quantum computing, quantum information technology and quantum sensing/metrology. We welcome applications from outstanding academics who are leaders, or aspiring leaders, in this emerging field.
The Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, within the Faculty of Engineering, enjoys a long-standing reputation for world leading research in the areas of electromagnetics, semiconductors and communications. The Department was recently recognised as top 3 for its teaching and top 10 for research in the UK. Semiconductor research has been ongoing in the Department for over 50 years, during which we have developed unique facilities and expertise that have made Sheffield one of the top University research sites for semiconductor research in the UK.
For informal enquiries please contact Prof Mark Hopkinson - m.hopkinson@sheffield.ac.uk - or Prof Jon Heffernan - jon.heffernan@sheffield.ac.uk
14 December 2023
Venue - The Wave, Sheffield, UK
Key Dates
Registration is open on the Event Website
Early Bird registration - before 1 November 2023
Standard registration - after 1 November 2023
Winter School - 15-17 January 2024
Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics Winter School
15-17 January 2024 @ The Wave, Sheffield UK
The LDSD Group is excited to announce this 3 day Winter School which will focus on wavelength-scale structures for tailoring photon propagation and emission as well as control, generation and detection of quantum light; novel materials for (quantum) nano-photonics; strong light-matter interaction; spins in semiconductor quantum dots and solid state defects.
The school will consist of lectures, invited talks and poster sessions.
The school is open for all early stage researchers at the PhD or postdoc levels.
5 October 2023
Twistronics: building moiré superlattices from 2D materials
Follow up to our previous video on van der Waals heterostructures, 2D Materials Beyond Graphene.
When ultrathin two-dimensional materials are stacked together to build designer nanomaterials, they can be twisted relative to one another, such that the atoms in each layer line up differently. This twisting, which is not possible in most present-day thin film nanotechnology, can lead to enormous changes of the material properties. The great potential on offer has given rise to a new field of scientific research termed "twistronics", which seeks to discover new functionality by taking two-dimensional materials and adding a twist.
10 January 2023
National Epitaxy Facility receives further funding
Professor Jon Heffernan, Director of the National Epitaxy Facility, is delighted to announce that following a community statement-of-need in 2019 and a competitive bid to EPSRC, the National Epitaxy Facility has been funded for a further five years from 1 July 2022.
The Facility, led by the University of Sheffield and with the Universities of Cambridge and UCL as partners, is fulfilling a critical role in semiconductor innovation in the UK, building on a 40-year history of providing epitaxial wafers to both the academic and industrial research community.
Visit the National Epitaxy Facility website for more information on capabilities and new features of the Facility including heterogeneous integration, an increased range of materials on offer, and opportunities for PhD training.
LDSD Fellowship Success
We are delighted to report recipients include Alistair Brash who is a current experimental RA and Yingkai Ouyang who is a former theory RA and is currently at the National University of Singapore.
Their fellowship programmes are titled “Controlling environmental interactions for novel solid-state quantum technologies” (Brash) and “Integrating quantum sensors with bespoke quantum error correction” (Ouyang) and complement our existing experimental and theoretical research in LDSD. More details about the scheme on the UKRI website
Congratulations to Alistair and Yinkgai on their success, which funds their research for five years and includes RA (EPSRC) and PGR (Sheffield) support.
Making Quantum Light with Quantum Dots
27 February 2022
We are pleased to announce the release of a new animation on our YouTube channel, written and directed by Alistair Brash.
Aegiq lands seven-figure investment
30 January 2022
University of Sheffield spin-out company Aegiq has secured a seven-figure investment to develop quantum security technology.
Read the full article on the University of Sheffield website.
Research associate/Scientific officer position
14 September 2021
We have a new job vacancy for a Research Associate / Scientific Officer to work in the interdisciplinary Near-Field Optical Spectroscopy Centre (NOSC) in Sheffield.
You should have completed or be in the final stages of your PhD, and have a background in scanning probe techniques.
Contact Professor Alexander Tartakovskii at a.tartakovskii@sheffield.ac.uk for more details. You can apply by clicking this link.
New programme grant
28 June 2021
Our group is very pleased to announce that we have recently been awarded a new programme grant by EPSRC. Further details may be found in the following press release:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/physics/news/university-sheffield-researchers-awarded-ps61m-study-light-emitting-semiconductors-quantum-science
Nature Photonics paper
30 November 2020
Today sees the publication of two papers from our group.
The first is a Nature Photonics paper titled “Optical analogue of Dresselhaus spin–orbit interaction in photonic graphene”, which is available for viewing online.
The second is an Optica paper titled “Chiral topological photonics with an embedded quantum emitter”, and is available for reading online.
Congratulations to all involved in this work.
LDSD seminar series
19 October 2020
October 2020 marks the return of the LDSD seminar series, where physicists working in the field of nanophotonics present their research virtually.
Last Thursday 15th October saw Dr Hamidreza Siampour from the University of Sheffield present his work on “Hybrid quantum photonics with nanodiamonds and plasmons”, and next Monday 26th October will see Dr Edward Laird from the University of Lancaster present his work titled “A coherent mechanical oscillator driven by single-electron tunnelling”.
Abstracts of upcoming seminars will be released when available on our Events page.
July 2020 publications
30 July 2020
July 2020 saw the publication of two papers from our group:
1. C.L. Phillips, A.J. Brash, D.P.S. McCutcheon, J. Iles-Smith, E. Clarke, B. Royall, M.S. Skolnick, A.M. Fox, A. Nazir, “Photon statistics of filtered resonance fluorescence”, Physical Review Letters 125 043603 (2020)
2. R.P.A. Emmanuele, M. Sich, O. Kyriienko, V. Shahnazaryan, F. Withers, A. Catanzaro, P.M. Walker, F.A. Benimetskiy, M.S. Skolnick, A.I. Tartakovskii, I.A. Shelykh, D.N. Krizhanovskii, “Highly nonlinear trion-polaritons in a monolayer semiconductor”, Nature Communications 11 1-7 (2020)
Congratulations to all those involved in this work.
Research labs reopen
23 July 2020
On 23 July 2020, after a lengthy lockdown period, we are pleased to announce the reopening of our research labs.
LDSD group holds seventh Programme Grant Away Day
27 January 2020
On 27 January 2020, the LDSD group held its seventh Away Day of the Programme Grant at The Edge in the Endcliffe Village, which saw all four work packages present their current research via informative presentations and a poster session. The day was a success, boasting around 40 attendees, including the EPSRC and our Advisory Committee.
Quantum Centre opening
24 January 2020
VC Professor Koen Lamberts getting proceedings underway on the opening day of our brand new Sheffield Quantum Centre.
Outreach
29 July 2019
This year has been a very busy year for our outreach activities, presenting our Quantum Light exhibit at Discovery Night, the Exploring STEM for Girls event and returning to the Cheltenham Science Festival. Between these three events we have encouraged thousands of people to explore the exciting world of quantum light and hopefully inspired a number of them to become the next generation of quantum researchers. We were also thrilled to discover that so many attendees shared our excitement about quantum physics, we look forward to meeting many more of you at our future events.
Taking the single photon challenge at the Cheltenham Science Festival
Exploring STEM for Girls event
LDSD group holds sixth Programme Grant Away Day
24 July 2019
On 23 July 2019 the group held the sixth Away Day of its Programme Grant, during which leaders of the four work packages reported on progress to date. The photo shows all attendees gathering together before lunch.
LDSD outreach animation achieves international scale
1 July 2019
LDSD outreach animation achieves international scale.
An image from an animation prepared in our group (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld2r2IMt4vg) was used as part of a presentation to explain quantum optics to members of the public in Lecce, Italy. The presentation in Italian was made as part of the TERAMETANANO-4 conference. The inclusion of our animation, originally prepared to communicate these fascinating concepts in physics to the public, shows that it continues to achieve its aim and provides a useful tool for the international science community.
Celebration of journal publications
26 June 2019
A celebration was held on 4 April 2019 in recognition of the recent publication of one paper in Nature: Nature 567, 81, (2019), two in Physical Review Letters: Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 096801, (2019) and Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 173603, (2019) and one in Optics Express: Optics Express 27, 10692, (2019).
Congratulations to all!