I am an Accelerator Physicist at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Natural Sciences, University of Manchester and an academic staff at the Cockcroft Institute (CI). Currently I am leading the advanced acceleration studies including plasma wakefield acceleration/deceleration (PWFA/PWFD), laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) and proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (AWAKE). We are collaborating with CERN, DESY and other international institutes and working on the CERN AWAKE experiment (the world first proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment) and EuPRAXIA design study (EU H2020 funded). In addition, we are initiating new research programme on PWFA using VELA/CLARA electron beams from the Daresbury Laboratory and the electron beams from the CERN CLEAR facility. Our group is also working on laser and ultrashort relativistic electron beam driven dielectric accelerators and the related experiments have been performed at CLARA front-end facility at Daresbury Laboratory. 

Meanwhile we are contributing to accelerator beam physics (linear and nonlinear beam dynamics in particle accelerators, e.g. the damping rings for the International Linear Collider, the storage ring-based light sources and free electron lasers), ultra-cold atoms, ultra-cold plasma based research and advanced materials (nano-materials such as graphene) and their applications to next generation particle accelerators, e.g. the low secondary electron yield (SEY) coating based on graphene coatings, etc.

We welcome students and researchers who have strong interests in plasma physics such as plasma wakefield accelerators, either driven by powerful lasers or relativistic electron and proton bunches to join in our research team. We also welcome students who are interested in laser or beam driven dielectric accelerators and beam dynamics in particle accelerators. Some scholarships (such as President Doctoral Scholarships-PDS, Dean's Scholarships and CSC Scholarships) and fundings (from STFC) are available in our group.