Dr Calum Ross, a previous research associate at Heriot-Watt’s School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, secured £970,000 through the Future Leaders Fellowships programme of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). He was one of our original postdoctoral researchers that was pivotal in developing the laser systems we have used throughout the project.
He spent two years developing an automated process that would allow the mass production of hollow-core fibre – a type of optical fibre that carries light in air about twice as fast than conventional solid glass optical fibre.
“Hollow-core fibre is currently made using a manual process that involves stacking fibre systems by hand – so it can’t be manufactured at scale,” Ross explained. “I’ve developed a laser-based fabrication approach that is automated and allows me to make a fibre that can be mass manufactured and can also have any internal structure.”
This ‘freeform’ hollow-core fibre offers significantly higher data transmission speeds than conventional optical fibre and has many applications in industries including telecoms, healthcare and manufacturing.
He has more recently been involved in receiving funding from the Scottish Enterprise High-Growth Spinout Programme to take ‘Freeform Photonics‘ to incorporation. Precision alignment and assembly is a key challenge in in photonics, and they are developing advanced laser-based manufacturing to address it.
It is amazing to see the progress of our postdoctoral researchers in their careers.