News — Photonics CDT

School pupils design and build self-driving robotic cars with support from CDT PhD researcher

PhD researcher David Gérard joined UCL's Access Team this summer to help Year 12 students design, build and programme their own self-balancing, self-driving robotic cars as part of the ‘Engineering for All’ residential summer school

PhD researcher, Liv Hawkins, awarded an SPIE Optics and Photonics Scholarship

Congratulations to PES CDT student, Liv Hawkins, who has been awarded a 2026 Optics and Photonics Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, for potential contributions to the field of optics and photonics.

International Day of Women and Girls in Science: Interview with PhD student Liv Hawkins

Liv Hawkins, a doctoral researcher on the Photonic and Electronic Systems CDT programme, was recently interviewed by her former school, George Watson’s College, to mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The insightful interview highlights Liv’s journey into science and the influence Watson's had on shaping her career.

Research paper highlights a new approach to spectrally aligning light emission from GaAs Quantum Dots using Electrically Tuneable Nonlocal Metasurfaces

A recently published scientific study, led by Dr Samuel Prescott at UCL, in collaboration with a research team at Sandia National Laboratories (USA), demonstrates a metasurface platform enabling spectral alignment of emission wavelength for a pair of sparse quantum dots, while also improving the emitted photon outcoupling efficiency.

Professor Steven Lee honoured with 2025 RMS Scientific Achievement Award

We are delighted to congratulate Professor Steven Lee on receiving the prestigious RMS Scientific Achievement Award 2025. A global leader in single-molecule microscopy for biological discovery, Steven has played a pivotal role in the CEPS and PES CDT programmes through his collaborative research and student supervision.