Two research scientists over a laser table
Credit: Jack Hobhouse
Sub-department

Atomic and Laser Physics

About

UROP Vacation Projects in Atomic & Laser Physics

We are offering several undergraduate research projects within Atomic & Laser Physics. Students selected for these projects will be paid the Oxford Living Wage (from April 2025: £13.16 per hour), subject to tax and National Insurance deductions. The duration and weekly hours of projects may vary. 

Eligibility

These projects are open to:

  • Current undergraduate students
  • Students in taught Master’s programs

Preference may be given to candidates not starting a Ph.D. program in 2025.

We welcome applications from students at universities outside Oxford.

📌 Work eligibility requirement:

  • Applicants must not require a visa to work in the UK.
  • Tier 4 visa holders in the UK may apply if their visa permits vacation employment.

How to apply

  1. Submit a 2-page application (as one PDF file) via email to Gail Jackson (alpadmin@physics.ox.ac.uk) with "UROP" in the subject line.
     
  2. Your PDF file must be named:
    📂 LAST NAME_First Name_ALP UROP_Name of Project Applied for
     
  3. Your application must include:
    1️⃣ One-page statement (≤500 words)
    1. Why do you want to do the project?
    2. Your previous experience.
    3. Research topics or projects of interest.
       
  4. 2️⃣ One-page CV
     
  5. 📌 Reference Requirement:
    1. You must provide the contact details (including email) of an academic referee.
    2. Your referee must submit a short letter of support separately via email to Gail Jackson (alpadmin@physics.ox.ac.uk) .

Applying for Multiple Projects?

  1. If you are applying for more than one project, you must submit separate applications.
    📂 Rename your email subject and PDF file accordingly for each project.
     

Project Highlight: Optical Neural Networks
Supervisor: Prof. Alex Lvovsky
Duration: 12 weeks (part-time: 50%)
Available positions: 2
Closing date: Wednesday 19th March

Optical neural networks (ONNs) harness the fundamental properties of light to enable ultrafast, energy-efficient computation, surpassing the limitations of digital-electronic systems in tasks such as large-scale matrix multiplications. By exploiting interference, diffraction, and nonlinearity, ONNs can perform parallel processing of high-dimensional data, reducing latency and power consumption. The project involves exploring three complementary perspectives on ONNs. (1) The first one deals with ONN applications for machine intelligence and computer vision. (2) The second aspect has to do with ONNs applied for spatial mode decomposition of an optical field, enabling the extraction of spatial information beyond the classical diffraction limit by leveraging the quantum and classical correlations in the field. (3) Finally, we study coherent optical spin machines, in which an optical network with feedback finds minimum-energy gates of interacting spin systems to solve nontrivial combinatorial optimization problems. The successful applicant will have an opportunity to engage with any of these aspects of our research. 

Applications from students who have been engaged in the group’s research during the academic year are given priority.

 

Project Title: Electrodynamic trapping of charged particles in air
Supervisor: Prof. Chris Foot
Duration: 4 weeks (full-time) 30hrs pw
Closing date: Wednesday 19th March

An existing apparatus will be used to measure the properties of volcanic ash particles such as how the viscous damping of motion in air depends on their shape and orientation. This is an extension of the electrodynamic trapping experiment on the practical course and knowledge of that apparatus would be an advantage, as well as experience of electronics and optics.

Applications from students who have been engaged in the group’s research during the academic year are given priority.

 

Project Title: Ion Trap Quantum Computing
Supervisor: Dr. Chris Ballance
Duration: 12 weeks FT
Available positions: 1
Closing date: Monday 31st March

One of the main challenges in building quantum computers is scaling up to larger systems. Our group (Advanced Barium Quantum System, or ABaQuS) is researching scaling methods for ion trap quantum computers. A common solution is to work with longer chains of ions. This approach requires individual addressing of the ions – the ability to shine lasers (and thus drive coherent operations) on select ions and not others. 

The summer project would focus on developing a new addressing system or gate scheme to improve gate fidelities and reduce environmental noise in the system. The project can be made more theoretical or more practical, depending on the student’s preference.