David Phillips

New preprint! 'Miniaturised multi-plane light converters via laser-written geometric phase holograms' arxiv.org/abs/2602.07222 . Rapid prototyping of multi-functional passive optical components sized ~1mm^3. A long-running project led by Dr Unė Būtaitė who built the laser-writer from scratch!💡

PhD studentship in the Structured Light Lab at University of Exeter (UK). Project: 'Threading quantum states of light through complex scattering media': www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... International fees covered. Deadline 31st Jan. Please share 🙏 or if this could be for you then get in touch!💡

Automatically learning how to sort out light Light can be sculpted into countless shapes. Yet building optical devices that can simultaneously manipulate many different optical patterns at once is extremely complicated, and remains a major chall...

Here is a summery: news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-e... and here is a link to the paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An incoming light beam bounces multiple times from a phase-only light modulator, whose micrometre-scale mirrors piston vertically to impose a varying 2D delay to the reflected light. As light travels and reflects through multiple mirror height profiles, each reflection transformation builds upon the last, progressively reshaping light to produce an output beam with tailored properties. Image credit: José C. A. Rocha.

Happy to share our paper "Self-configuring high-speed multi-plane light conversion" recently published in Nature Comms. If you work on multi-plane light converters and find implementing them somewhat fiddly, this might be for you! Special thanks to 1st author José Rocha who did a fantastic job!

And 🥁 the final program of the *"Image Science" Gordon Research Conference*, to take place in Italy April 26-May 1st, is out!
Please take some time to check the program, apply, *share* with your colleagues.
www.grc.org/image-scienc... (1/N)

Just saw this - Congratulations Jonny!

and 8yrs later (in 2003) you taught me 'Modern Optics' at Durham (I still have the notes and regularly dip into Hecht). You also taught 2 other faculty here at Exeter physics!

Harnessing the frequency eigenchannels of ultrafast time-varying media Control over the interaction of waves with ultrafast time-varying materials - those that change on a time-scale commensurate with the wave period - holds much promise for developing a raft of new tech...

arxiv.org/abs/2508.12753

New arXiv paper: "Harnessing the frequency eigenchannels of ultrafast time-varying media", led by Ian Hooper and Simon Horsley at Uni. of Exeter. Translating concepts from spatial "wavefront shaping" to temporal "waveform shaping" through dynamic media moving fast enough to generate new frequencies!

The radial memory effect in multimode optical fibres We present a study of a novel memory effect in multimode optical fibres, which manifests itself as an output ring of excess energy at the same radius as an input focussed spot. This effect is robust a...

New paper on #ArXiv!
When (coherent) light propagates in a multimode fibre, each mode accumulates a slightly different phase, so the output looks like a random speckle patter.
But it is NOT random!

(very short 🧵)
💡 ⚛️
1/2

and... our program for the upcoming IMAGE SCIENCE🔬 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) is 🎯LIVE🎯. It will take place April 26, 2026 in beautiful tuscany, italy 🇮🇹 🍕 🤌

Please check our stellar line-up, share, and register!

www.grc.org/image-scienc...

spontaneous formation of waves? (seen as ripples in sand dunes and in backward propagating bunches of slowly moving cars on motorways)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Exeter Looking for a new job opportunity in academia? Check out this job opening for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on jobs.ac.uk!

Here are the adverts with more details:
Quantum focussed: jobs.ac.uk/job/DND532/p...
High-speed wavefront shaping focussed: jobs.ac.uk/job/DND534/p...
Application deadline 8th June.

2 postdoctoral researcher positions are available in the Structured Light Group in Exeter (UK). Project focussed on quantum & classical light control through dynamic complex scattering media (see concept picture). Details are below. Drop me an email if you'd like to know more! 🧪💡

We have multiple postdoc openings in *optical computing* 🔦+🤖, *computational microscopy* 🔬+🧠, and *nanophotonics*💡+⚛️. Don't hesitate to get in touch / spread the word!

Threading light through dynamic complex media - Nature Photonics Guiding light around dynamic regions of a scattering object by means of propagating light through the most ‘stable’ channel within a moving scattering medium is demonstrated, potentially advancing fie...

Project in collaboration with Simon Horsley (Exeter) and Philipp del Hougne (Univ. de Rennes). See here for our paper (open access): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share our work published in Nature Photonics: "Threading light through dynamic complex media". We show how to pilot beams of light through the most stable channels within moving scattering media. Special thanks to Chai, Christina & John from the Structured Light Group, Exeter! #Photonics💡

Hello, just arrived on bsky! Looking for fellow optics researchers. To kick things off - here is our latest preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2501.14129 'Self-configuring high-speed multi-plane light conversion'. Lead author José Rocha prefers to go make a cup of tea rather than manually align his MPLC...