Heriot-Watt University has joined with the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC) to help carry out astrophotonics research in Scotland.

The project has received over £890,000 in funding from the UKRI Science and Technology Facilities Council to pursue two main areas of research.

Funding will enshrine Edinburgh as a “world centre for astrophotonics,” and will allow researchers to focus on developing new optical components.

Heriot-Watt is leading a new consortium, which includes partners from the UKATC, the University of Arizona and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg.

Professor Robert Thomson, head of Heriot-Watt’s Photonic Instrumentation Group said: “We find ourselves at a point where conventional approaches to optical instruments like telescopes are reaching their limits.

“Astrophotonic technologies offer a route to circumvent these limits and help astronomers discover more about our universe.

“Our aim is to use advanced photonic manufacturing techniques to fabricate optics that are not limited in their shape like normal optics. In the long term, this will allow astronomical instruments that are more efficient and lower cost.”

Astrophotonics is the field that aims to harness advances in photonics, the optical equivalent of electronics, to give astronomical instruments unprecedented capabilities.

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Professor Derryck Reid, head of the Ultrafast Optics Group at Heriot-Watt, will focus on improving the way astronomers measure light.

“We’re going to demonstrate a new class of small, ultra-stable lasers that will provide a ‘ruler’ for the wavelength of light,” Reid said. “This will allow astronomers to measure the wavelength of starlight extremely precisely, and in a way that allows comparisons over years and even decades.

“The wavelength signatures of starlight can reveal exciting information about questions such as whether life exists on exoplanets, or if the fundamental constants of physics are in fact changing by tiny amounts,” he commented.

The three-year project aims to demonstrate new research and builds on sustained funding to Heriot-Watt from the STFC and other funding organisations such as the EU over the past decade.

It will also support work that is taking astrophotonic technology to the higher technology readiness levels needed for deployment on major international projects like the Extremely Large Telescope.

Professor Chris Evans, head of science at the UKATC, said: “As we build larger telescopes to look deeper into the universe, they scale upwards in size and cost with traditional optics.

“Establishing this joint project with Heriot-Watt gives us an exciting opportunity to explore the huge potential of new photonic technologies towards the cutting-edge astronomical instruments of the 2030s and beyond.”

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The new astrophotonics research is just one of a variety of innovation projects led from Heriot-Watt over the last few years.

In July 2020, scientists at the University unveiled a new lab aiming to research and develop technologies for use in the care sector.

The combined apartment and research workshop, based at Heriot-Watt’s National Robotarium, is the world’s first open and remote access living lab focused on creating solutions for Ambient Assisted Living (OpenAAL).

Heriot-Watt’s robatarium was also a major milestone after its launch in 2018. The multi-million-pound innovation hub, built in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, is the UK’s leading centre for robotics and autonomous systems.