Corin Gawith is a Principal Research Fellow at the University of Southampton and also Co-founder and CTO of the Southampton spin-out company, Covesion Ltd. Corin's research interests are in photonics process development, enterprise, and knowledge transfer and he has developed 30 industrially-licensed manufacturing patents and a range of products now in use by hundreds of universities, research institutes and companies worldwide. He leads an academic-industrial research team on the development of Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN), a technology for changing the colour of lasers to enable new applications in quantum technology, aeronautial defence, and remote sensing.

In collaboration with the NQIT photonics team, Corin is investigating the use of PPLN to convert light at telecoms wavelengths to/from the wavelengths required for light-matter interaction in atom and ion traps. The goal of this research is to enable a compatible interface between new quantum components and the existing worldwide infrastructure for optical communications.