DOCTORAL CANDIDATE
Ramya Tripathi

SUPERVISORS
Stefan Enoch, Aix Marseille Université (AMU)
Dr. Marc Dubois, Aix Marseille Université (AMU)
Prof. Martijn de Sterke, The University of Sydney (USYD)
Prof. Boris Kuhlmey, The University of Sydney (USYD)
Dr. Alessandro Tuniz, The University of Sydney (USYD)

Photonics, Applied Physics, Microwave Physics, Terahertz Physics.

Integrated photonic devices are a poised to be a key driving building block of several 21st century technologies, e.g.,quantum information and intelligent hardware, and rely on efficiently guiding light in a compact and controlled environment via dense networks of waveguides. Though the best-known example of these are optical fibres, recent years have seen an increased interest in short-range chip-based waveguides that harness exotic phenomena to provide additional degrees of freedom for controlling light.

This project involves carrying out experiments to characterise the modes of THz waveguides and compare with numerical simulations and with theoretical results. We recently discovered a novel method to characterise waveguides in which a near-field emitter allows for the full control over the excitation of the waveguide modes, which can then be picked up by a receiver. Although this is conceptually straightforward for simple planar waveguides, it is much more interesting for waveguides with structure such as photonic crystal waveguides. It will also be possible to investigate more exotic structures, for example those with Weyl points or Dirac points which can occur in topological materials.

Multiwave Imaging (MW) will provide a non-academic secondment and give concrete and valuable insights regarding impact development and creation. MW and Institute Fresnel are already research partners for more than 5 years and have co-supervised several PhD students in various topics including near field energy transfer and biomedical applications. Institute Fresnel and the University of Sydney also have a long-standing collaboration and have successfully co-supervised multiple PhD students. The secondment will also help the PhD student to develop a network of non-academic contacts, expanding their career opportunities.