PhD studentships in the AMOPP group

Explore PhD studentships in UCL’s Atomic, Molecular, Optical, and Positron Physics group. Discover research opportunities, funding options, and pathways to advance your doctoral studies.

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PhD studentships in the AMOPP group

The AMOPP group hosts a lively and vibrant research community with 17 principal investigators and more than 110 people overall, including PhD students, postdoctoral research associates and support staff. Research within the group spreads across a vast range of areas, such as

  • quantum information processing and quantum technologies,
  • atomic and molecular cooling and trapping,
  • highly excited Rydberg states,
  • quantum cavity optomechanics,
  • quantum sensing,
  • positron and positronium physics,
  • ultracold laser spectroscopy and strong laser interactions,
  • theoretical physics of molecules and quantum systems,
  • astronomical spectroscopy,
  • quantum collective dynamics in light-matter systems,
  • quantum physics of biomolecular processes,
  • macromolecular interactions in biological systems,
  • attosecond, strong-field and free-electron-laser interactions of matter with light.

UCL EPSRC Landscape Award Scholarships

To start in Autumn 2026; application deadline 1pm UK time on Jan 5th 2026.

We warmly invite competitive applications for scholarships on the following projects, open to home and international candidates with an interest in pursuing research in experimental and theoretical physics:

If you are interested in applying, or for any other query related to these scholarships, please contact the project’s supervisor directly or the AMOPP PhD admission tutor Alessio Serafini.

UCL scholarships

Highly competitive scheme based on academic merit, open to both Home and International students. This scheme may feed into the CSC scholarship.

Based on academic merit and financial need, open to UK-permanent resident from one of the following BAME ethnic groups: Black or Black British - Caribbean; Black or Black British - African; Other Black background; Asian or Asian British - Bangladeshi; Asian or Asian British - Pakistani.

The Dean’s Prize waivers international fees for students who have won a competitive scholarship. This scheme also subsumes the CSC scholarship, which require such waivers.

Further scholarship opportunities

Ultrafast phenomena instigated by core electron motion in XFEL-driven molecules

A 4-year Ph.D position is available in the group of Prof. Agapi Emmanouilidou at University College London as part of the 4-year Leverhulme Trust grant “Ultrafast phenomena instigated by core electron motion in X-ray Free-Electron Lasers (XFEL)-driven molecules”. The goal will be to significantly advance the state of the art in theoretical and computational techniques in order to investigate coherent excitation and ionization, photoionization time delays in multi-centre molecules driven by ultra-short XFEL pulses as well as to control the interplay of electron and nuclear dynamics during the break-up of XFEL-driven triatomics. FELs are short-wavelength pulses that are orders of magnitude more intense than the pulses provided by conventional light sources, ranging from XUV pulses of a few eV to hard X-rays of a few thousand eV.

The Ph.D student, with the group of Prof. Emmanouilidou, will investigate largely unexplored ultrafast phenomena in XFEL-driven molecules. Such ultrafast phenomena are: • identifying signatures of quantum-interference on ionization spectra due to coherent excitation and ionization, and obtaining the photoionization time delays of inner-shell electrons in multi-centre molecules, with fixed nuclei, driven by ultra-short XFEL-pulses; • controlling the interplay of single-photon ionization  and Auger-Meitner processes, the coupling of electron and nuclear motion, and imaging structural dynamics, i.e. the geometry of the nuclei during the break-up of XFEL-driven triatomics. Studying these ultrafast phenomena is a scientific frontier due to their fundamental nature and the remarkable advances in generating ultra-short XFEL-pulses.

The Ph.D student will focus on developing advanced and state-of-the-art quantum-mechanical techniques in order to address these ultrafast phenomena. The Ph.D student will develop the theory with the group of Prof. Emmanouilidou in the Physics and Astronomy Department at University College London. One of the highly exciting aspects of this work is that it involves close collaboration with top experimental groups working on the interaction of molecules with FEL and XFEL pulses at Stanford and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics.

If you are interested in this Ph.D position please contact Prof. Agapi Emmanouilidou by e-mail at ucapaem@ucl.ac.uk.

Attosecond Photoelectron Imaging with Quantum Light. 

Professor Carla Faria invites PhD applications for a 3.5 year doctoral  position at UCL starting on the 1st of October 2026, with the aim of studying ultrafast photoelectron holography with nonclassical light.  

Attoseconds (10-18 s) are among the shortest time scales in nature, so that the usual physical mechanisms leading to the loss of coherence may not develop. This may revolutionize quantum technologies. Ongoing discussions include creating massively entangled states and quantum superpositions using entanglement between electrons, and electrons with non-classical light (Cruz-Rodriguez et al, Nature Reviews Physics 6, 691 (2024)).  

The project unites attoscience and quantum technologies. Ultrafast photoelectron holography is a powerful tool to trace attosecond changes in matter using interference patterns from different quantum pathways of an electron to the detector. Thereby, path- integral methods such as the UCL developed Coulomb-Quantum Orbit Strong-Field Approximation (CQSFA) have a huge predictive power (Faria and Maxwell, Rep. Prog. Phys. 83 (3), 034401(2020)).  Nonetheless, the field was considered classical. 

In this project, the CQSFA will be generalized to a full quantum electrodynamic setting, and used to calculate photoelectron momentum distributions (PMDs) with non-classical light of different statistics.  The influence of these fields on the PMDs and of the electron states on the field will be assessed. Subsequently, the entanglement between the field and the electron for tailored fields will be quantified, with quantum sensing applications in mind.  

The student will be supervised by Professor Carla Faria on Attoscience, and by Professors Sougato Bose and Alessio Serafini on Quantum Technologies. Interactions with leading groups in the UK and abroad are anticipated. 

This is a theoretical project.  The successful applicant should have an MSc in Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry or related areas, with at least a 2.1 or equivalent. Pre-knowledge of path integral methods and coding experience are desirable.  They should be a UK home student. 

The deadline for applications is on 16th of January 2026. Shortlisting and interviews will take place in February 2026. Applications should be made to the AMOPP group quoting the project and the supervisor. 

For informal inquiries please contact c.faria@ucl.ac.uk (see also www.uclatto.com).

 

How to apply

In order to apply for a PhD position with us, regardless of funding, first:

  • contact your prospective supervisor and agree on a research project with them, then
  • submit an application on the Physics and Astronomy MPhil/PhD page (choosing the route Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Positron Physics). 

For general inquiries and any clarification, contact the admission tutor Alessio Serafini.

Seaton award

An award of £1000 has been established in honour of Prof M Seaton FRS, distinguished atomic physicist and former member of the group. This award will assist new students joining the AMOPP group. One recipient will be selected by the group every year on the basis of academic merit and particular circumstances (e.g., students coming from abroad or moving to London).