The Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering is pleased to share that Dr Zhixin Liu has been awarded a prestigious EPSRC Open Fellowship to develop novel photonic technologies for the next generation of telecommunications and healthcare systems.
The £1.6 million EPSRC Open Fellowship will support Dr Liu’s research into compact, tuneable, and temperature-insensitive optical frequency combs, an essential technology for enabling transformative capabilities in future 6G networks and beyond.
The research will take a systems-first approach, starting from the emerging technical demands of 6G communications and working backwards to engineer bespoke frequency comb solutions. Dr Liu’s project will focus on enabling precise clock and time synchronisation, high-capacity and energy-efficient data transmission, and high-resolution, dynamic sensing.
In partnership with 10 collaborators, the project will integrate photonic technologies, including photonic integrated circuits and ultrafast nonlinear optics with advanced telecoms capabilities such as digital signal processing, microwave electronics, and coherent optical receivers. This multidisciplinary approach offers a powerful pathway to meeting the complex challenges of future communications infrastructure.
While the primary application area is 6G networks, Dr Liu will also explore how these innovations can support new approaches in medical imaging and diagnostics, working closely with healthcare technologists to identify translational opportunities.
I am deeply honoured to have been awarded this prestigious fellowship. It is an incredible opportunity to bring together my work and collaborations across diverse fields. I am truly grateful that my vision and capabilities have been so well recognised. Now I am thrilled to embark on an exciting new technological journey to help shape the future.
