Green house gas detection using silicon photonics platform.

Towards the journey for Net Zero, there is a pressing need to revolutionise the monitoring of greenhouse gas pollutants throughout the oceans. Modern gas sensors are bulky and power hungry, limiting their use—this project will develop unique and tiny Silicon Photonic sensor chips for widespread oceanic greenhouse gas monitoring.

The oceans play a crucial role in the prosperity and future of our civilisation; as a source of natural resources and in controlling climate (global warming). Marine environmental science has reached a bottleneck where further advances in knowledge and understanding of the oceans can only be obtained if a new generation of integrated multi-parametric sensors is developed, capable of mass-deployment in the oceans. This project will investigate filling up this technology gap with new class of sensors. Sensors that measure ocean life and chemistry are very rare. Such measurements underpin many scientific fields, not least the accurate modelling of the oceans' role in climate change. In addition, these sensors are also required by many industrial sectors for routine high resolution, temporal monitoring of environment parameters. Current measurement methods are based on traditional sampling and laboratory analysis, although some macro sensors and devices are being developed. Clearly this approach which will never be able to measure the oceans with sufficient resolution in space and time. New innovative sensor technologies are required. The heart of these future technologies are the miniaturised silicon photonics sensor chips. The project will investigate the fabrication of new generation of integrated nano-photonic devices capable of operating in harsh environments, without bulky, expensive and power-hungry support systems