Welcome to the website for the Optical Manipulation Group at the University of St Andrews
The Optical Manipulation Group works in a variety of research areas of optical physics and biophysics. Our research is focused on the development of optical micromanipulation techniques, the investigation of novel light fields, the characterisation of particle dynamics (at the atomic, nano, and micron scale) in optical light fields and the exploration of novel optical imaging techniques for biology and medicine. The group is headed by Kishan Dholakia, and consists of an international mixture of multi-disciplinary research staff and PhD students.
We are based in the School of Physics & Astronomy, and part of the Centre of Biophotonics and the Sir James Mackenzie Institute for Early Diagnosis. Our work has generated several commercial projects, such as the Elliot Scientific Optical Tweezer range and the M-Squared Aurora microscope. Our research is presently funded by a number of sources, including the UK EPSRC, the European Union Framework 7 programme, the EU Horizon 2020 Programme and the Leverhulme Trust.
We are hiring!
We are currently advertising three posts for Research Fellows to join our group. Applicants are sought to work with us in Advanced Optical Imaging, Optical Trapping, or Computational Methods for Image Analysis in Biophotonics. Posts are available for 1 year in the first instance, with scope for extension. Closing date for applications is 10th January 2020.
Prospective PhD students and summer project interns are also encouraged to contact Prof Kishan Dholakia with informal enquiries.
Recent research highlights
Patterned light sees inside tissue
Shaping light in space and time enables imaging deep within organisms.
Read the article in Science Advances.
Light-sheet imaging the Airy way
Control of the shape of Airy beams offers advantages for biomedical imaging.
Research article in Science Advances.
Randomness aids precision measurement
Random speckle patterns allow the accurate determination of a laser’s wavelength.
Read the article in Nature Communications.