PhD: Novel Nanoparticle-Coated Optical Fiber Sensing Technologies: Funded PhD Opportunity

The Position

Optical fibers revolutionized telecommunications. Could they also enhance our ability to diagnose diseases earlier, identify trace contaminants in food, or detect hazardous gas leaks?

Your PhD project, co-supervised by Profs. Hubert Jean-Ruel (Department of Electronics) and Reza Kholghy (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), will be at the interface of photonics, mechanical engineering, and physics. At the heart of this project, you will develop and study a new class of nanoparticle-coated optical fiber sensors, combining coatings produced by flame spray pyrolysis or spark ablation with tilted fiber Bragg gratings. You will explore functional nanoparticle coatings, including metallic nanoparticles that support plasmonic effects, and investigate how their composition and structure influence the optical response and sensing performance. The project will culminate in a proof-of-concept demonstration of a new sensor for a target application selected together with the supervisory team.

The research will combine modelling, fabrication, and experiments. You will help advance simulation tools to understand non-uniform coating geometries and investigate how plasmonic field enhancement can be harnessed for sensing. Associated developments could include a microfluidic platform for controlled measurements and eventual deployment, a compact, purpose-built optical spectrum analyzer tailored to the sensors, and custom hardware for coating deposition and processing. Together, these developments will address both the underlying sensing physics and the practical challenges of reproducible fabrication and real-world use.

We welcome applicants with backgrounds in electrical engineering, engineering physics, physics, mechanical engineering, materials science, or related fields who enjoy building sophisticated instruments and understanding how they work. If you are excited about driving technological breakthroughs to deepen scientific knowledge and improve society, consider joining the teams of the Advanced Photonic Components Laboratory and the Energy and Particle Technology Laboratory.

How to Apply

Please contact HubertJeanRuel@cunet.carleton.ca and RezaKholghy@cunet.carleton.ca