About the project
Harnessing structural disorder to control light offers a new route to highly efficient solar-thermal energy conversion. This project will develop and model hyperuniform disordered metasurfaces: nanostructured materials designed to combine near-unity solar absorption with suppressed thermal emission, opening pathways toward more efficient next-generation solar-thermal energy systems.
This project will investigate how structural correlations in disordered photonic materials can be engineered to control the absorption, scattering and emission of light for high-efficiency solar-thermal energy conversion. By combining electromagnetic theory, large-scale computation and experimental collaboration, the work will establish design principles for hyperuniform disordered metasurfaces that use correlated disorder for precise and broadband light management.
The research will develop a theoretical and computational framework for metal-dielectric-metal metasurfaces that achieve selective solar absorption. Finite-element and finite-difference time-domain simulations will be used to determine how structural correlations and the degree of hyperuniformity influence broadband absorption, angular response, dispersion and thermal emission. Artificial intelligence and machine-learning methods will be used to accelerate the design and optimisation process, combining physics-informed learning, surrogate models and optimisation to navigate large structural design spaces and identify high-performing, physically interpretable architectures.
You will be based at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), with access to state-of-the-art computational facilities and specialist photonics laboratories. The project bridges theory, AI-enabled design, simulation and experiment. You will work closely with experimental collaborators on the implementation, fabrication and optical characterisation of selected metasurface designs, allowing computational predictions to be tested and refined in realistic devices.
The research programme will focus on:
- theoretical formulation and numerical modelling of solar-selective metasurfaces based on hyperuniform geometries
- design and optimisation of correlated disorder using physics-informed artificial intelligence and machine-learning methods
- parametric and multiphysics simulations to identify pathways toward near-unity solar absorption and suppressed thermal emission
- work with experimental collaborators to translate optimised designs into fabricated prototypes and evaluate their optical and thermal performance through characterisation
The School of Optoelectronics (ORC) is committed to promoting equality, diversity inclusivity as demonstrated by our Athena SWAN award. We welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age, and will give full consideration to applicants seeking flexible working patterns and those who have taken a career break. The University has a generous maternity policy, onsite childcare facilities, and offers a range of benefits to help ensure employees’ well-being and work-life balance. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and has been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.
