PhD Studentship - EPSRC Project Proposals 2025/26 - Liquid Crystals for Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Technologies

Project Link: Liquid crystals for augmented reality and virtual reality technologies | Project Opportunities | PhD | University of Leeds

Eligibility: UK Only

Funding: School of Physics & Astronomy studentship in collaboration with Merck Electronics, providing full academic fees, together with a tax-free maintenance grant at the standard UKRI rate of £20,780 per year for 3.5 years.

Lead Supervisor’s full name & email address

Dr Mamatha Nagaraj: M.Nagaraj@leeds.ac.uk

Co-supervisor’s full name & email address

Professor Helen Gleeson: H.F.Gleeson@leeds.ac.uk

Dr Richard Mandle: R.Mandle@leeds.ac.uk

Professor Gordon Love: G.D.Love@leeds.ac.uk

Project summary

Liquid crystals are a remarkable class of soft materials that combine properties of conventional crystals and liquids. They are sensitive to their interaction with contacting surfaces, temperature, electric and magnetic field making these materials invaluable for display devices and as optical components in electronics and communication technologies.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies have potential to revolutionize the ways we perceive and interact with digital information. However, achieving satisfying user experience ensured by high quality optics requires tuneable materials such as liquid crystals and extremely accurate fabrication processes for AR/VR devices. There are challenges in using liquid crystal based devices for AR VR including overcoming chromatic aberration and optical losses and achieving the right set of optical properties such as refractive index and birefringence.

This project will seek to address some of the technological challenges and significantly enhance our understanding of materials and devices required for AR/VR. It will focus on developing novel materials and characterising the interplay between materials and devices. The project is a collaboration with Merck Electronics, a global manufacturer of liquid crystals for display technologies.

The project will take place in the Soft Matter Physics group in the School of Physics and Astronomy at University of Leeds. Within the group, we have a variety of activities across soft matter. We work with world-leading chemists, engineers and theoreticians and our research is truly interdisciplinary. During the course of the PhD project a variety of experimental and device fabrication techniques will be employed offering an excellent practical training to the PhD student. The research environment offers superb facilities, provides a high quality research training and delivers an exceptional student education.

Suitable candidates would have a background in soft matter physics, condensed matter physics, material physics or engineering, physical chemistry, or a closely related field.

Please state your entry requirements plus any necessary or desired background

A first class or an upper second class British Bachelors Honours degree (or equivalent) in an appropriate discipline.

Subject area: Applied physics, condensed matter physics, materials science, optical physics

Advert information