PhD Studentship: Searching for New Physics with Highly Charged Ion Clocks

Overview

The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham is offering a PhD studentship on searching for new physics with highly charged ion clocks. Some of the biggest open questions in modern physics concern the limits of the Standard Model and General Relativity. The nature of dark matter and dark energy is unknown, and many theories predict that fundamental constants may vary in space or time. Atomic clocks are an exceptionally sensitive test of this, and their reach depends both on how precisely frequency can be measured and on how strongly their transitions respond to changes in the constants.

The project aims to develop a new type of atomic clock based on highly charged ions. The student will work towards the first clock based on highly charged californium, Cf17+, whose exceptional sensitivity to variations of the fine-structure constant makes it a powerful probe of physics beyond the Standard Model. The work combines production and manipulation of highly charged ions with cryogenic ion trapping, laser cooling, precision spectroscopy and quantum-logic techniques. Eventually the clock will be compared with an optical strontium clock to look for temporal variations of the fine-structure constant and signs of ultralight dark matter.

The student will join the experimental team at Birmingham, which has built the UK's first platform for highly charged ions and has already demonstrated their production, charge selection, transport, trapping and sympathetic cooling inside laser-cooled calcium ion Coulomb crystals. The work ranges from producing and trapping Cf17+ to developing quantum-logic spectroscopy and an ultra-stable laser for the clock transition. The student will also spend about six months with collaborators at MPIK Heidelberg, contributing to the first precision measurements of the atomic structure of californium highly charged ions. Training covers cryogenics, ultra-high vacuum, charged-particle optics, laser cooling, ion trapping, precision laser spectroscopy, quantum logic and atomic-clock technology.

Key dates

The closing date is 17 December 2026.