News

Join the quantum technology revolution 

The University of Sheffield is seeking to make four new appointments in the field of Quantum Technologies as part of its strategic investment plan. Three of these posts will be in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the fourth post will be in the Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering. 

14 December 2023

Further information about all four posts can be found on the University of Sheffield 'Jobs' web pages or by clicking the links below.  The closing date for all four posts is 22 January 2024.


DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY

UOS039475 - Professor in Quantum Technologies

UOS039464 - Early Career Research Fellow in Quantum Technologies

UOS039467 - Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Quantum Technologies


The Department of Physics & Astronomy (ranked first in the UK in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework) is seeking to appoint outstanding academics/early career researcher to work within our Quantum Physics and Technology Research Group. The group currently has 8 professors, 1 senior lecturer, 4 early-career research fellows, 17 post-doctoral researchers, and 20 PhD students. We work on experimental and theoretical projects in quantum physics including: III-V quantum dots, single-photon sources, polaritons, 2D materials, topological photonics, photonic quantum technologies, quantum error correction, quantum imaging and quantum metrology. We are supported by a broad base of research council grants and are part of the EPSRC Quantum Communications Hub. The group has state-of-the-art optical laboratories, and the University hosts world-class facilities in semiconductor epitaxial growth and nanofabrication. 


We welcome applications from aspiring leaders with expertise in either experimental or theoretical physics. We are seeking to make appointments to complement and strengthen our present research portfolio but will also consider applications in the broader field of quantum technologies should candidates with suitable experience present themselves.


For informal enquiries please contact Prof Mark Fox - m.fox@sheffield.ac.uk 


DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONIC AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

UOS039476 - Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Quantum Technologies


As Lecturer/Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Assistant/Associate Professor) in Electronic and Electrical Engineering you will have the opportunity to develop a program of research in quantum technology with colleagues in the Department’s Semiconductor Devices and Materials group, the National Epitaxy Facility, hosted in the Department, and with colleagues in Physics as part of the Sheffield Quantum Centre. We are looking for candidates within the field of Semiconductor Quantum Technologies, which may include quantum computing, quantum information technology and quantum sensing/metrology. We welcome applications from outstanding academics who are leaders, or aspiring leaders, in this emerging field.


The Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, within the Faculty of Engineering, enjoys a long-standing reputation for world leading research in the areas of electromagnetics, semiconductors and communications. The Department was recently recognised as top 3 for its teaching and top 10 for research in the UK. Semiconductor research has been ongoing in the Department for over 50 years, during which we have developed unique facilities and expertise that have made Sheffield one of the top University research sites for semiconductor research in the UK.  


For informal enquiries please contact Prof Mark Hopkinson - m.hopkinson@sheffield.ac.uk - or Prof Jon Heffernan - jon.heffernan@sheffield.ac.uk

14 December 2023

Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics Winter School

15-17 January 2024 @ The Wave, Sheffield UK

Confirmed speakers 

Venue - The Wave, University of Sheffield, UK

Key Dates

4 October 2023

Written and directed by Tom Lyons in collaboration with Alexander Tartakovskii's research group.  Produced by Gareth Jones, 23i.co.uk

10 January 2023

Twistronics: building moiré superlattices from 2D materials

Follow up to our previous video on van der Waals heterostructures, 2D Materials Beyond Graphene.

When ultrathin two-dimensional materials are stacked together to build designer nanomaterials, they can be twisted relative to one another, such that the atoms in each layer line up differently. This twisting, which is not possible in most present-day thin film nanotechnology, can lead to enormous changes of the material properties. The great potential on offer has given rise to a new field of scientific research termed "twistronics", which seeks to discover new functionality by taking two-dimensional materials and adding a twist.

LDSD fellowship success through the newly announced EPSRC quantum technologies career development programme

13 April 2022

We are delighted to report recipients include Alistair Brash who is a current experimental RA and Yingkai Ouyang who is a former theory RA and is currently at the National University of Singapore.

Their fellowship programmes are titled “Controlling environmental interactions for novel solid-state quantum technologies” (Brash) and “Integrating quantum sensors with bespoke quantum error correction” (Ouyang) and complement our existing experimental and theoretical research in LDSD.  More details about the scheme on the UKRI website

Congratulations to Alistair and Yinkgai on their success, which funds their research for five years and includes RA (EPSRC) and PGR (Sheffield) support.

National Epitaxy Facility receives further funding

30 June 2022

Professor Jon Heffernan, Director of the National Epitaxy Facility, is delighted to announce that following a community statement-of-need in 2019 and a competitive bid to EPSRC, the National Epitaxy Facility has been funded for a further five years from 1 July 2022.

The Facility, led by the University of Sheffield and with the Universities of Cambridge and UCL as partners, is fulfilling a critical role in semiconductor innovation in the UK, building on a 40-year history of providing epitaxial wafers to both the academic and industrial research community.

The current facility has supported research projects valued at £150 million across 25 universities and with over 40 companies, in projects ranging from integrated photonics for cancer biopsy, to single photon emitters for quantum communications and computing, high speed lasers driving the next generation of the internet, and a new project looking at creating an analogue of a black hole in the laboratory!

With semiconductors now high on the UK government’s agenda, including a new consultation by BEIS, there has never been as many opportunities for researchers, students and industrial colleagues working in the semiconductor sector. The director added, “we look forward to working closely with the community over the next years to position the UK as a global leader in this field”.

Visit the National Epitaxy Facility website for more information on capabilities and new features of the Facility including heterogeneous integration, an increased range of materials on offer, and opportunities for PhD training.

Quantum Sensing for the Hidden Sector (QSHS) website

1 April 2022

Keep up to date with all the recent news, project updates, and people working on the QSHS project by visiting the QSHS website. Follow the project on Twitter @info_qshs.

University of Sheffield to lead multi-million pound project which could open up a new frontier in physics

12 July 2021

Quantum Sensing for the Hidden Sector (QSHS), is the best supported and largest UK effort in hidden sector physics to date, and involves scientists from a range of disciplines within physics.

A collaboration of scientists from across the UK are working on a new project to detect hidden particles, the discovery of which could open up a new frontier in fundamental physics.

Find out more in this University of Sheffield news article

University of Sheffield researchers awarded £6.1 million to study light emitting semiconductors for quantum science and technology

29 June 2021

Full news article on the University of Sheffield website

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have been awarded £6.1m to study light emitting semiconductor nanostructures.

Led by Professor Maurice Skolnick, the programme aims to capitalise on advanced technology to discover fundamentally new regimes of nanophotonic phenomena, with potential to underpin the next generation of quantum technologies.

The team, which involves eight co-investigators at the University of Sheffield, University College London and the University of Manchester, has been awarded a £6.1 million grant for this research by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Our research focuses on light emitting semiconductor materials. Such materials emit light very efficiently and dominate many aspects of everyday life, enabling things like the internet, large area displays, room and street lighting. Their existence relies on the high quality semiconductor structures which may be prepared by advanced crystal growth and sophisticated nanofabrication.

Professor Maurice Skolnick – Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Sheffield

“By capitalising on this, we aim to achieve fundamental advances in quantum photonics ranging from the regimes of few photons to highly dense states containing many tens of millions of electrons, holes and photons. The findings have considerable potential to underpin next generations of quantum technologies.”

The team will research on-chip geometries, enabling scale-up as likely required for applications. Due to the strong interaction of semiconductor materials with photons the researchers will achieve interactions between photons which normally do not interact, a key requirement for logic gates operating at the level of single photons.

This will give the researchers insight into the regime of highly non-linear phenomena at the few photon level. By coupling photons in cavities together, they are aiming for highly correlated states of photons, likely to be important components of photonic quantum processors and quantum communication systems.

The versatility of these semiconductor nanostructures will also allow access to regimes of high density where electrons and holes condense into highly populated states. This will allow the team to answer long-standing fundamental questions about the types of phase transitions that can occur in systems both in and out of equilibrium with their surroundings. The condensed state systems, besides their fundamental interest, also have potential as new forms of miniature coherent light sources.

University of Sheffield Inorganic Semiconductors

Opening of the Sheffield Quantum Centre

16 March 2020

The Sheffield Quantum Centre is now officially open! We celebrated the formal opening and launch of the Quantum Technology MBE Capital Equipment on Wednesday, 22 January 2020 in The Diamond, the University of Sheffield, 32 Leavygreave Road, Sheffield S3 7RD.

The opening of the Centre was carried out by Lord Jim O’Neill chair of Chatham House, promoter of the Northern Powerhouse and Sheffield alumnus, and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, Professor Koen Lamberts.

The day was composed of the formal opening, talks on the UK National QT Programme, the Sheffield Centre and the new equipment. It was also held in conjunction with the MSCA ITN 4PHOTON Winter school, where relevant scientific talks were presented by leaders in the quantum dot and nanophotonics fields.

Below are some photos from the opening day.

Framed sign the wall to celebrate the opening
Group photo with machinery
Group photo in a lab
Machinery
Scientific talk with an audience
Presenting to an audience
Presentation slides
Presenting to an audience
Speaker at the opening day

University of Sheffield launches new research centre to revolutionise computing, communication, sensing and imaging technologies

22 January 2020

A new research centre with the potential to revolutionise computing, communication, sensing and imaging technologies is set to be launched by the University of Sheffield this week (22 January 2020) 

LDSD Group celebrate success of spin-out company - AegiQ 

12 September 2019

The UK is amongst the global leaders in bringing quantum technologies to market which is strongly driven by the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme run by the government. 

The University of Sheffield already plays a major role in quantum technology with its National Epitaxy Facility and The Sheffield Quantum Centre, which have received a number of large EPSRC grants over the years. But, with strong support for commercial development available from Innovate UK, a team of researchers led by Professors Maurice Skolnick and Jon Heffernan, saw an opportunity to expand quantum technology at Sheffield beyond the boundaries of the University.

Hello world!

29 November 2018

The University of Sheffield is in the process of setting up a Quantum Centre to bring together researchers across the University active in quantum science and technology.