The Team

Professor Michalis Zervas

Principal Investigator

  • Professor Michalis Zervas is a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Advanced Fibre Laser Technologies for Future Manufacturing, and Principal Investigator for the HiPPo Programme Grant. His research activities include advanced optical fibre amplifier configurations, high power fibre lasers, fibre DFB lasers, Bragg grating theory and devices, surface-plasmon effects and devices, optical microresonators, and non-linear fibre optics. He is a co-founder of Southampton Photonics Inc., a University of Southampton spin-off, now Trumpf Lasers UK, manufacturing high power fibre lasers, where he served as Chief Scientist from 2003 to 2016. He has authored/coauthored over 340 technical publications, about 40 patents/patent applications (of which 20 are granted) and has served on various conference program committees.

Dr Ben Mills

Programme Manager

  • Dr Ben Mills is a Principal Research Fellow in the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), where he leads a group at the interface of laser machining and deep learning. He has 15 years of experience in intelligent laser machining, with around £11 million in grant funding, 150 publications, and 20 invited talks in this area. In 2023, he received “The Top 100 in Photonics” award and “The AILU Innovation Award” for his breakthroughs in AI and lasers. He is the Programme Manager for the HiPPo Programme Grant.

Professor Andy Clarkson

  • Professor Andy Clarkson is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, and leads the Advanced Solid‐State Sources group at the ORC. His principal research interest is the development of novel coherent light sources with particular emphasis on power‐scaling and brightness scaling of fibre and bulk (crystal‐based) solid‐state lasers and amplifiers, thermal effects and their mitigation, optical resonators and mode control, diode pump coupling schemes and nonlinear frequency conversion. He has published over 400 conference and journal papers, and served on a very wide range of editor and committee positions.

Professor Johan Nilsson

  • Professor Johan Nilsson leads a research group on high power fibre lasers. His main areas of interests are guided-wave lasers and amplifiers, nonlinear optics, fibre optics, as well as optical communications and other applications of lasers and optoelectronics. His research has covered system, fabrication, and materials aspects of guided-wave lasers and amplifiers in industry and academia, including the first fibre laser with over 1 kW of output power in a nearly diffraction-limited beam, the first cladding-pumped fibre Raman laser, and several record-breaking demonstrations in the field of single-frequency and pulsed sources, sources for beam combination.

Professor Jayanta Sahu

  • Professor Jayanta Sahu leads the Silica Fibre Fabrication Group at the ORC, where his research focus is on optical materials, fibre lasers and amplifiers, and speciality optical fibre fabrication for telecommunications, fibre lasers and amplifiers, and sensing. He has been involved in various pioneering research projects including the development of kW-class laser fibres, and the next generation of telecom fibres and amplifiers. His work has led to the demonstration of several world records in the field of high-power fibre lasers, and led to over 500 articles in scientific journals and conferences in the area of optical fibre technology.

Dr. Peter Horak

  • Dr. Peter Horak is Associate Professor at the ORC and heads the Computational Nonlinear Optics group. He obtained an MSc degree in Theoretical Physics in 1993 and a PhD degree in Theoretical Quantum Optics in 1997 from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He held research positions at the University of Innsbruck, at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, France, and at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, before joining the ORC in 2001. His main research interests are in the theory and numerical simulation of a wide range of photonic systems, from fundamental physics to photonics engineering, with a particular focus on multimode nonlinear optics and quantum technology. He has published over 360 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers.

Dr. Yongmin Jung

  • Dr. Yongmin Jung is a distinguished Principal Research Fellow at the ORC, with over 20 years of expertise in specialty optical fibres, optical amplifiers and beam shaping techniques. He currently leads the work package 3 in the Hippo project, focusing on advanced beam shaping and beam delivery technology. Dr. Jung’s research involves exploring diverse beam shaping methods to establish the foundation for reconfigurable beam shaping and ‘smart photon’ delivery. He has authored three book chapters, holds six patents, contributed to over 380 scientific papers, and has an H-index of 48.

Professor Sir David Payne
KBE CBE FRS FREng

  • Professor Sir David Payne KBE CBE FRS FREng, is a research pioneer in photonics, with numerous international awards, and is regarded as the most highly honoured UK scientist in photonics. His contributions are acknowledged as seminal in many areas of optical telecommunications, one of the greatest scientific successes of the last three decades. His work spans many areas of photonics, from optical sensors to nanophotonics and optical materials, and includes the silica fibre laser and the Erbium-Doped Optical Amplifier (EDFA). He has made several of the key technical achievements in almost every area of optical fibre technologies and his work has had a direct impact on telecommunications, as well as nearly all fields of optical R&D.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall
DBE, FRS, FREng

  • Professor Dame Wendy Hall, DBE, FRS, FREng is Regius Professor of Computer Science, Associate Vice President (International Engagement), and is an Executive Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton. One of the first computer scientists to undertake serious research in multimedia and hypermedia, she has been at its forefront ever since. The influence of her work has been significant in many areas including digital libraries, the development of the Semantic Web, and the emerging research discipline of Web Science. She is well known for her development of the Microcosm hypermedia system in the mid-1980s, which was a forerunner to the World Wide Web. In addition to playing a prominent role in the development of her subject, she also helps shape science and engineering policy and education.

Dr. James A Grant-Jacob
MInstP

  • Dr. James A Grant-Jacob MInstP, is a Senior Research Fellow, and has worked in a variety of areas, ranging from high harmonic generation and phase retrieval, to DNA sequencing, laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT), pulsed laser deposition, laser fabrication, laser machining, sensing and imaging. Using grants from Nvidia, he and his colleagues have used deep learning for improving a variety of laser-based processes. He has over 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, which includes work with NASA on manufacturing lasers for greenhouse gas detection, and presenting work at the Houses of Parliament.

Dr. Konstantin Bobkov

  • Konstantin K. Bobkov is a Senior Research Fellow at the Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, and a key experimental researcher within the HiPPo programme. His work spans several of the project's core activities, from fundamental studies of transverse mode instability to the development and operation of high-power fiber-laser systems. He has identified and experimentally investigated two previously unreported forms of TMI, advancing the understanding of instability mechanisms in high-power fiber amplifiers. He has also played a central role in establishing the project's multi-kW MOPA platform for frequency-conversion experiments and is advancing coherent beam combining through development of a new class of combining heads, enabling mechanically robust systems with rapid programmable beam steering and shaping.

Dr. Nilotpal Choudhury

  • Dr. Nilotpal Choudhury is a Research Fellow, and is involved in the development of Novel fibre and fibre materials. His prime area of research includes the fabrication of Silica based specialty optical fibre using Modified Chemical Vapour Deposition (MCVD) Chelate delivery and Solution doping technique for different industrial and medical applications. His research activity involves optimization of process technology for different core glass structures and novel designs suitable for high power fibre lasers and amplifiers. He has 12 published articles in different Scientific journals and Conference proceedings in the field of Optical fibre technology.

Dr. Manuel Alessandro Medina

  • Dr. Manuel Alessandro Medina is a research fellow, focussing on high-power narrow-linewidth green and UV generation. He received his master’s degree in Experimental physics from the University of Trento in 2018, and from 2019 to 2022 worked at the French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis (ISL), obtaining his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Aix-Marseille, France. His main research area was the study of power scalability of mid-infrared Optical Parametric Oscillators emitting into the 3-5 µm spectral region.

Rosemary Clark

  • Rosemary Clark received the MSc degree in Physics from the University of Southampton in 2022. Now she is working towards her PhD at the Optoelectronics Research Centre in Southampton, United Kingdom. Her main research area is the profiling of glass preforms and the development of high power, long wavelength fibre lasers.

Changshun Hou

  • Changshun Hou received the B.S. degree in science from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2019, and the MSc degree in Optoelectronics from Huazhong University of Science & technology, Wuhan, China, in 2022. Now he is working on his Ph.D. degree in high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers.

Yuchen Liu

  • Yuchen completed her BEng at Anhui University, China with the dissertation ‘Accurate prediction of nuclear β-decay half-lives by neural network’. Yuchen graduated from the University of Southampton, UK with the thesis ‘Deep Learning for Phase Control in Coherent Beam Combination’ to complete her MSc. Yuchen is now working on selective laser cleaning by using deep learning for the project.

Dr. Qiubai Yang

  • Dr. Qiubai Yang completed his Ph.D. at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he specialized in the development and application of specialty active fibers for high-power narrow-linewidth fiber lasers. His research interests include designing and fabricating high-performance active fibers and advancing fiber laser sources. Currently, he is contributing to the HiPPo project as a Research Fellow, focusing on cutting-edge advancements in fiber optics and laser physics.

Kate Callaghan

  • Kate received her MPhys from the University of Southampton in 2025. She is currently undertaking her PhD at the Optoelectronics Research Centre in Southampton, focusing on AI driven optimisation of high power laser systems and coherent beam combining under atmospheric turbulence. 

Sahar Alidousti

  • Sahar’s research includes the design of a compact enhancement cavity for efficient second-harmonic generation, power scaling of single-frequency fibre amplifiers, and suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), the primary nonlinear limitation at high power. Through this work, Sahar aims to enable highly efficient visible laser sources for advanced industrial and scientific applications.

Tom Harris

  • Tom received his master's degree in physics at the University of Bath in 2022 and is now a PhD student in the Advanced Solid-Sate Systems group at the ORC. His PhD research is focused on power-scaling lasers at 1.5μm for improved eye-safety laser cleaning. Currently, he is developing the use of CO2 lasers for novel silica fibre preform machining, for research into new optical fibre designs.

George Hannen

  • George is PhD student currently studying at the University of Southampton. He graduated from the University of Surrey in 2023 with his final project focusing on gamma-ray spectrometry of naturally occurring radioactive material. His research focuses on the power scaling of thulium-doped fibre lasers closer to their fundamental limit. This entails scaling continuous wave thulium systems by investigating ways to increase their efficiency and mitigate thermal effects while in operation.

Luke Davies

  • Having completed an MSci in Chemistry from the University of Bristol in 2024, Luke is now a PhD student at the ORC. His research involves the power scaling of two-micron thulium doped fibre lasers and investigating novel concepts for their use in a range of application areas.

Dominic Blackledge

  • Dominic received his MPhys from the University of Kent, United Kingdom, in 2022. He is currently working towards his PhD at the University of Southampton, where his main research focus lies on the realisation of multi-functional Coherently Combined fibre laser amplifiers

Yuhang Huang

  • Yuhang received the B.S. degree in Mechanical design, manufacturing and automation from Jimei University , Xiamen, China, in 2022, and the Master degree in Mechanical Engeneering from Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, in 2025. He is now working on his Ph.D. degree in Revolutionising Specialty Optical Fibre Fabrication with Machine Learning.

Dr. Yunhui Xie

  • Dr. Yunhui Xie received his Ph.D. in 2022 from the University of Southampton, specialising in the exploration of light-matter interactions through the application of advanced computer vision and control algorithms. His academic interests lie at the intersection of machine perception and optimal control, particularly within expansive action spaces.

Dr. Xiaoshan Huang

  • Dr. Xiaoshan Huang received her M.S. degree from University of Science and Technology Beijing in 2019, specializing in optical fiber device design and fabrication. After that, she obtained her PhD from Guangdong University of Technology, focusing on multimode nonlinearity. She is now a research fellow at University of Southampton, working on beam shaping.

Martin Damyanov

  • Martin obtained his master’s degree in mathematical physics from Heriot-Watt University in 2023. During his undergraduate studies, he worked on several research projects centered on FPGA programming for laser diode pulsing, quantum theory and experimental quantum interferometry. For his master’s thesis he investigated the effects of focusing on ultrashort light pulses using second-harmonic generation autocorrelator systems. After working for a while as an optical engineer in industry following graduation, he is now pursuing his PhD degree at the ORC under the supervision of Dr. Yongmin Jung and Professor Michalis Zervas. His research focuses on advanced beam shaping for next-generation fibre lasers.

Connor Sheehan

  • Connor’s research aims to identify the limitations in power scaling two-micron fibre laser systems and develop strategies to improve their scalability. The main area of focus is the use of Thulium doped fibres to create efficient laser systems in the high peak power pulsed regime

Yuanchong Zhang

  • Yuanchong received his MSc degree in Optical Engineering from the University of Southampton in 2024 and is now a PhD student in the Pulsed Fibre Laser Group at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC). His research focuses on advanced multicore-fibre component and fibre-laser development. He is currently working on all-fibre phase control in active multicore fibres for coherent beam combining, as well as polarisation rotation and control in hollow-core fibres.

Rowland Rich

  • Rowland received his MPhys with Nanotechnology from the University of Southampton where he developed an interest in optics and photonics, which he is now pursuing as a PhD student at the Optoelectronics Research Centre in Southampton under the supervision of Prof. Andy Clarkson. His research focuses on high-power second harmonic generation of green wavelength lasers using nonlinear crystals.

Fedor Chernikov

  • Fedor received his bachelor’s degree from the NRNU MEPhI- National Research Nuclear University Moscow Engineering Physical Institute). His bachelor’s project focussed on light and matter interaction, the simulation of quasi stationary currents of fast electrons when irradiating heavy targets with a high-power laser pulse. He completed his MSc in Coherent Beam Combination and phase identification using CNN at the University of Southampton. He is now working on his PhD in the same subject area.

Jack Drury

  • Jack received his MPhys degree at the University of Southampton in 2024. Jack completed his final project during an industrial placement at TRUMPF Laser UK, where he was studying the generation of defects in fibre preforms under different types of laser irradiation. Jack is now researching the degradation effects arising from high peak powers in pulsed fibre lasers.

George Clements

  • George Clements received an MSc in Physics with Photonics from the University of Southampton in 2025. He is now doing a PhD within the ORC at Southampton University. His main area of research is the development of advanced fibres for use in high power fibre lasers.

Emily Joy Jones

  • Emily Joy Jones graduated from Cardiff University in 2024 with an Mphys in Astrophysics. Their PhD research at the ORC is in power-scaling green fibre lasers, with a focus on mitigating stimulated Brillioun scattering.

Zedi Zhang

  • Zedi’s MSc thesis objective involves the simulation and construction of an Offner-Stretcher and Compressor pair of Chirp Pulse Amplification for a mid-infrared laser with a wavelength of 2400 nm. Simultaneously, she was involved in spectroscopy research of absorption and emission detection of Cr:ZnSe/Cr:ZnS materials. Zedi’s internship refers to the investigation of Self-Mode-Locked Thulium-doped ultrashort pulses lasers. She also completed several topics of Diode-Pumped Solid-State Lasers (DPSSLs), such as “Testing Process of Laser Detection Automation for DPSSLs”, “Design and Process Optimization of Alignment-Free DPSSLs for wavelengths of 532/561/556 nm” and  “Optimization of a 946/473 nm DPSSL”.

Dr. Sooraj Mundakkolly Sureshbabu

  • Sooraj has a background in Physics, having begun his academic journey with an M.Sc. in Physics from Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT). He went on to complete both his M.Tech and Ph.D. in Photonics at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). His doctoral research focused on coherent beam combination using fiber amplifiers, with a particular emphasis on non-intrusive off-center feedback methods for phase synchronization.He is currently working as a Senior Research Assistant on the HiPPo project, contributing to advanced research in coherent beam combination.

Mihai-Stefan Merlas

  • Stefan earned his Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Southampton in 2023, where he completed an industrial placement with TRUMPF Lasers investigating cladding-pumped fibre absorption efficiency. He is currently pursuing a PhD focused on the optimisation of pump absorption in cladding-pumped fibre lasers through pump mode mixing engineered by azimuthal and longitudinal perturbations, while developing experimental characterisation techniques to quantify mode coupling, with the aim of improving the overall performance of high-power fibre laser systems.

Cuil Short

  • Cuil Short received a MSc degree in Physics from Lancaster University in in 2024, assisting with EM resonance simulations for the QSHS Dark Matter detection experiment. He is currently working towards a PhD at the Optoelectronics Research Centre in Southampton, United Kingdom; investigating alternative dopants to for visible high-powered fiber lasing.

Daniel Elmar

  • Daniel received his MSc in Computer Science from the University of Southampton in 2024, with dissertation title "Marine IoT Surface Communication Technologies For A Robot Swarm". He has subsequently decided to switch paths to pursue his interests in laser physics. He is now in his first year working towards his Ph.D. at the Optoelectronics Research Centre in Southampton under supervision of Prof. Andy Clarkson. His main research area is in coherent combination of multiple tuneable fibres to create combined beams with varying intensity, phase and polarization profiles.