Postgraduate Opportunities

The PhD and MPhil project descriptions listed below are provided to give applicants a flavour of what research study is available. If you are interested in pursuing a postgraduate degree in the group, please contact me.

• Terahertz driven linac: Shrinking the size and cost of particle accelerators
• Terahertz spintronics: Enabling the exploitation of electron spin

I have successfully supervised 9 PhD students and have an additional 6 PhD students currently working within my group. In addition to the support they receive from myself and each other, they are supported by two post-doctoral research associate working within the group.

Undergraduate Opportunities

Summer research projects are available for undergraduate Physics students at the University of Manchester, advertised internally through Blackboard. Please get in touch if you are considering applying for a placement in the group.

Postdoctoral Research Opportunities

If you are interested in joining the group for postdoctoral research, funding is available through established fellowships (including EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowships, Marie Curie individual fellowships, Royal Society Fellowships and others); please feel free to contact me to discuss your research plans.

Research Groups

• Terahertz Physics
• Cockcroft Terahertz Acceleration Group
• Photon Physics
• Accelerator Physics

Research Institutes

• Photon Science Institute
• The Cockcroft Institute

Dr Graham obtained a MPhys(Hons) degree in Physics from The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 2001. He subsequenctly joined the research group of Prof. Philip Dawson in the Condensed Matter Physics group at UMIST to work on photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy of gallium nitride semiconductor quantum well structures. This work was performed in close collaboration with Prof. Sir Colin Humphreys' group in the Materials Science Department at the University of Cambridge.  In 2005 he received his Ph.D. for his thesis entitled ‘Optical studies of III-Nitride quantum well structures’. In 2006 he moved to STFC Daresbury Laboratory to pursue post-doctoral research on time-resolved x-ray photoemission spectroscopy under the supervision of Prof. Wendy Flavell.

In 2011, Dr Graham was awarded a prestigious 5 year EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship to establish ultrafast time-resolved terahertz spectroscopic techniques in the Photon Science Institute (PSI) at the University of Manchester. He was subsequently awarded the position of Lecturer in Physics (equivalent to assistant professor) in the School of Physics and Astronomy to develop the Terahertz Physics Group at Manchester. In 2019, Dr Graham was promoted to the position of Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) and then to Reader in 2023.

My research interests are focused primarily on terahertz physics, and the exploitation of ultrafast laser-based terahertz radiation sources and terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. I address challenges both within the fields of photon physics and accelerator physics. Within the field of photon physics, I use terahertz spectroscopy to probe the fundamental properties of materials being developed for the next generation of electronic devices, aligned with the 'Atoms to Devices' strand of the Henry Royce Institute. My work within the field of accelerator physics is focused on using sub-picosecond terahertz radiation pulses to manipulate electron beams and ultimately shrink the size of particle accelerators. This work involves utilising the state-of-the-art laser facilities at the Photon Science Institute (PSI) and the accelerator facilities at STFC Daresbury Laboratory.