Leader of the Photonic Nanomaterials Group (PNG) in which research is focused on optical and electronic properties of solid state nanostructures for applications such as optoelectronics devices, quantum information processing and photovoltaics. At present the Group’s research involves two such systems - semiconductor nanocrystals and colour centres in diamond which we investigate using luminescence-based optical techniques.

Jason Smith will drive the training mission of the Hub. He is the Oxford leader of the EPSRC CDT in Diamond Science and Technology, and is internationally recognised in solid state physics and photonics.

He leads the €2.6M EC FP7 project WASPS, a consortium of six universities addressing technological bottlenecks in single photon sources.

WP4 will develop solid state nodes for sensing (near-term) and eventually scalable computation. The hardware will implement applications developed in WPs 5-8.

This work package will develop solid state devices based on colour centres in diamond and superconducting qubits. The diamond programme focuses on the use of optically addressable spins in nitrogen-vacancy and silicon-vacancy defects as sensors and qubits, with emphasis on the engineering of the diamond materials, and on optical cavities to control and enhance the coupling of information from spin states to photons.

A key goal within the NQIT programme is to achieve a small scale entangled network of six solid state spin qubits, as a platform for further up-scaling. WP4 also includes development of superconducting nodes consisting of networks of superconducting qubits and microwave cavities. In partnership with Oxford Instruments and Rohde & Schwarz this programme will develop bespoke cryogenics and microwave control as spin-off technologies.