The University of Southampton has been awarded £6m to establish a centre for nanostructured photonic metamaterials by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The grant will fund an interdisciplinary research programme over the next six years aimed at developing switchable and active photonic media.
"Over the last twenty years photonics and its dependence on new and improved photonic materials has played a key role in creating the world as we know it," said leader Professor Nikolay Zheludev, citing the used of lasers in optical fibre networks and optical discs amongst other technologies.
"We now anticipate that the next photonic revolution will continue to grow, fuelled by a dependence upon photonic metamaterials."
Zheludev is deputy director of the University's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC). The team of investigators also includes: Professor Peter Ashburn of the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science; Dr Janne Ruostekoski, School of Mathematics; Professor Peter de Groot, School of Physics and Astronomy; and Professor Rob Eason, Professor Daniel Hewak, and Dr Vassili Fedotov from the ORC.