£8 million project to advance ultra-stable laser technology in Scotland

A major new £8 million research programme at the University of Strathclyde is aiming to take ultra-stable laser technology beyond the laboratory and enable future advances in quantum-enabled navigation, sensing, communications and precision timing.

Professor Jennifer Hastie, from Strathclyde’s Institute of Photonics, has been awarded an £8 million Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship to lead the 10-year PORTAL (Portable Ultra Coherence) project.

The programme will focus on creating compact, highly stable lasers capable of delivering the performance required by advanced quantum technologies in smaller, more practical systems suitable for use outside specialist laboratories.

Many of today’s most advanced quantum technologies rely on exceptionally stable laser light, but the systems capable of producing this level of performance are often large, complex and confined to specialist laboratories.

One potential application is quantum-enabled positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), including future alternatives to GPS that are more resilient to interference, spoofing and jamming.

Professor Hastie, who is also Deputy Principal Investigator of the UK Hub for Quantum Enabled Position, Navigation and Timing, said:

“If successful, these lasers could underpin future quantum sensors, clocks and positioning, navigation, and timing systems that are deployable in real-world environments.”

The Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship provides up to £8 million over 10 years to support ambitious, high-risk research. The award will support the expansion of Professor Hastie’s research team and collaboration with researchers from the UK Hub for Quantum Enabled Position, Navigation and Timing, the National Physical Laboratory, Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, Imperial College London and the University of Waterloo in Canada.

The project brings together two areas of significant strength within Scotland’s Critical Technologies Supercluster: photonics and quantum technologies.

By developing technologies that could help move advanced quantum systems from specialist laboratories towards real-world deployment, the programme further demonstrates Scotland’s capability in next-generation critical technologies.