Ben King

Ben joined the CDT in September 2016, having previously completed a Masters in Physics at Durham University. In Semester 1 of 2016/17 he completed a short exploratory practical research project at the University of Glasgow, supervised by Professor Richard Hogg - Characterisation of Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Lasers. In the second semester, at Queen's University Belfast, under the supervision of Professor Robert Bowman, he completed a short research project - High frequency magnetic metrology for magnetic shielding.

CDT PhD Research Project - Quantum Dot Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Laser

Supervisors: Professor Richard Hogg, University of Glasgow, Dr David Childs, University of Glasgow and Dr Bob Pollard, Queen's University Belfast

For many laser applications where energy needs to be delivered to a small spot, a high brightness is required. The photonic crystal surface emitting laser has been shown to enable coherently coupled arrays to be realised opening a route to brightness scaling. Quantum dots offer the possibility for high temperature operation, and their development as a high temperature active element is being pursued in a separate PIADS project. This project explores using quantum dot active elements within photonic crystal surface emitting lasers for the first time, developing additional building blocks for future extreme environment lasers. The combination of the outcomes of these two projects may allow high temperature, high brightness sources to be realised in future.