ERC-funded postdoctoral position in Optical Attosecond Science, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK (Deadline: 30.09.2025)

3-year postdoc position in the Laboratory of Ultrafast Physics and Optics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK (https://lupo-lab.com/).

For complete job description and application instructions see https://tinyurl.com/2mtum5f8
The Laboratory of Ultrafast Physics and Optics (LUPO, https://lupo-lab.com) seeks a talented and motivated scientist to drive a research programme in advanced ultrafast nonlinear optics and attosecond-resolution ultrafast spectroscopy. The goal of the project is to design, implement, and utilise a new beamline for ultrafast science with ultrabroadband optical attosecond pulses. The work will involve both ultrafast pulse compression and frequency conversion exploiting gas-filled hollow-core fibres as well as ultrafast spectroscopy investigations of condensed-matter samples. The project will be carried out under the supervision of Dr Christian Brahms and in the framework of an ERC Starting Grant, which aims to establish a new regime of optical attosecond science. It will be supported by international collaborations with several world-leading research groups in ultrafast science. A new state-of-the-art laboratory is being developed for the project.

About Our Team

LUPO uses nonlinear optics to create new light sources with extreme spectral and temporal properties: ultrabroadband supercontinua, intense sub-cycle field transients, and few-femtosecond ultraviolet pulses, among many others. We combine numerical modelling with experiments to study the fundamental nonlinear optical dynamics in our favourite system: gas-filled hollow-core fibres, both with and without microstructure. We use the new light sources we develop in applications ranging from industrial and healthcare technology to fundamental scientific research, both in our own laboratories and in collaboration with a large international network of partners in academia and industry.

LUPO is jointly led by several principal investigators. Our facilities include over 200 m2 of laboratory space and a large range of primary ultrafast laser sources, ranging from home-built fibre oscillators to several high-power ytterbium-based systems and a high-energy titanium-doped sapphire amplifier. We design and build many of our own components and devices, including state-of-the-art ultrafast pulse characterisation systems, vacuum beamlines, high-pressure gas cells, and optical diagnostics. Our numerical simulations rely on our own open-source code, Luna.jl (https://github.com/LupoLab/Luna.jl).

More details about our group and our research can be found at https://lupo-lab.com/