"PhD Studentship - Detection and Study of Exotic Radioactive Ions using Laser Cooling and Precision Laser Spectroscopy"

The University of Manchester - Physics and Astronomy

UK only

This 3.5 year PhD project is fully funded by the UKRI. Home students, and EU students with settled status, are eligible to apply. The successful candidate will receive an annual tax-free stipend set at the UKRI rate (£20,780 for 2025/26) and tuition fees will be paid. We expect the stipend to increase each year. The start date is October 2026.

We recommend that you apply early as the advert may be removed before the deadline.

Aims: this project aims to measure fundamental nuclear properties in cooled, exotic super-asymmetric fission fragments and atomic-nuclear processes in ultra-low lying nuclear excited states.

Details: The project is to be based at the IGISOL facility, JYFL, Jyvaskyla, Finland and ISOLDE, CERN. The research will exploit a recently constructed electrostatic ConeTrap and use it, for the first time, to facilitate high efficiency, high precision laser spectroscopy. The developed spectroscopy will then enable precision measurements of nuclear parameters via the hyperfine structure and isotope shift.

The project is based at facilities where The University of Manchester and our national and international collaborators, from the UK, Belgium, China, Finland, Germany, Russia and Japan, have performed successful nuclear structure (and atomic) studies. In the new work our objective is to achieve spectroscopic efficiencies at an order of magnitude higher than that any previously attained. Historical efficiencies have permitted in-flight studies of short-lived radioactive ions with lifetimes as short as 10 ms and production rates as low as 10 ions per second. We now intend to supersede these efficiencies and be capable of studying the most weakly produced and highest Z systems available at our on-line isotope separators. The advance is to be achieved by harnessing the sympathetic laser cooling of trapped ensembles (and to cool our ions to a few kelvin temperatures). The effect on the efficiencies and sensitivities of laser and mass spectroscopy are then profound, up to an order of magnitude improvement for each.

Applicants should have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2.1 honours degree or a master’s (or international equivalent) in a relevant science or engineering related discipline.

How to apply: uom.link/pgr-apply-2425

To apply, please contact the main supervisor, Dr Paul Campbell - Paul.Campbell-3@manchester.ac.uk. Please include details of your current level of study, academic background and any relevant experience and include a paragraph about your motivation to study this PhD project.