NEW PhD Opportunity: Jan 2018 – Manufacturing VCSELs: growth, fabrication and characterisation


  

An excellent PhD opportunity has become available via an EPSRC Industrial CASE 2018 studentship with project partners Cardiff University and IQE plc. Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers are required for a large number of applications due to low energy usage, superior beam quality and the potential for very large volume manufacturing. The epitaxy design and the fabrication methodology are substantially different for the varying applications, leading to different requirements for scale-up. The student will experience the entire VCSEL manufacturing process from the structure design, Compound Semiconductor growth, device fabrication, on-wafer testing for quality assurance and an understanding of the underlying physics. The scientific challenges for manufacturing scale-up will be addressed; firstly, the efficient conversion of electrical to optical energy; secondly on VCSELs with very high beam quality and narrow laser linewidth.

The EPSRC Manufacturing Hub in Future Compound Semiconductors (https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/513349-10m-award-creates-compound-semiconductor-hub) will work closely with the Compound Semiconductor Centre (CSC) (http://www.compoundsemiconductorcentre.com/) – a partnership between Cardiff and global advanced semiconductor wafer manufacturer IQE (http://www.iqep.com/about-iqe/).


Funding Notes

This project is funded by the EPSRC Industrial CASE 2018 PhD studentship award, administered via project partners Cardiff University and IQE plc.

Full awards (tuition fees plus maintenance stipend) are open to UK Nationals and EU students who can satisfy UK residency requirements.

We reserve the right to close applications should sufficient applications be received.


 Candidates are encouraged to contact us with informal enquiries.