The Soft Matter Photonics Group research and people involved
Soft Matter Photonics Group
Our Research
Our research focuses on the design and development of new opto-electronic and photonic devices that are based upon soft-matter such as liquid crystals and polymers, as well as the development of new fabrication and characterisation techniques.
The research sits at the interface between engineering, materials science and physics and includes the development of new electro-optic effects and materials for photonics applications. Our research is largely experimental in nature, but is also underpinned by theoretical studies.
Some of the devices and technologies that we develop include phase modulators, speckle reduces, diffractive optic elements, thin-film lasers, photo-voltaic devices, smart windows and display devices.
The research group is located in the Holder building of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. At present, the laboratories include a Clean Room facility for the preparation of liquid crystal and polymer materials/devices, an optical polarising microscopy suite with three optical polarising microscopes, an Abbe refractometer, UV-Vis spectrometers, a fluorescence microscope and an atomic force microscope. There are also three laser laboratories containing a range of experimental techniques including an ultrafast laser system for laser writing. There is also a printing lab that contains a combination of 3D printers and a drop-on-demand inkjet printing system.
