Jennifer Hastie is Director of the Institute of Photonics and leads a research team with a main interest in optically-pumped semiconductor and solid-state lasers for high spatial and spectral brightness and broad tunability at novel wavelengths. 

Jennifer built her team with an EPSRC Challenging Engineering Award (EP/I022791/1), gaining an international reputation for research in the area of narrow linewidth semiconductor disk lasers (SDLs) with advanced wavelength flexibility for applications including metrology and lithography; spanning ultraviolet, visible and infrared spectral regions through the use of novel materials and intracavity nonlinear frequency conversion techniques.  A particular research highlight was the development of intracavity-pumped tunable crystalline Raman lasers, including CW diamond Raman lasers. 

As a result of the group’s work in the area of ultra-narrow linewidth lasers, Jennifer is a member of the Management Board of the UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensing and Timing (www.quantumsensors.org), leading the development of novel lasers for high performance optical clock systems.  The Hub, led by Prof Kai Bongs and Director Simon Bennet of the University of Birmingham, includes leading research groups from the Universities of Glasgow, Nottingham, Southampton and Sussex, and Imperial College London. This international centre of excellence is translating state-of-the-art lab technology into deployable practical devices with the academics working with >60 industry partners to translate research into marketable applications.

Biography: Jennifer joined the IoP as a PhD student in 2000.  In 2004 she was awarded a 5 year research fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering to develop visible and ultraviolet semiconductor disk lasers for applications in biophotonics and was Principal Investigator on two further grants funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC): for work on ultraviolet SDLs (EP/D061032/1) and on InP quantum dot SDLs (EP/E056989/1), the latter in partnership with Dr Andrey Krysa of the University of Sheffield and Prof Peter Smowton of Cardiff University.  She has also been a co-investigator on an EPSRC Engineering Platform Grant for the development of advanced solid-state laser systems (EP/E006000/1) and a grant on diamond Raman lasers (EP/E056989/1) with IoP colleague Prof Alan Kemp.  She was the Strathclyde lead investigator on the UK Quantum Technology Hub for Sensors and Metrology (PI Prof Kai Bongs, University of Birmingham, EP/M013294/1), and the lead academic investigator on two Innovate projects with M Squared Lasers Ltd to translate her group’s research on ultra-narrow linewidth semiconductor lasers for quantum technology (EP/M508287/1 and IUK 102667). This has been followed by her role on the Management Board of the UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensing and Timing (EP/T001046/1), leading a research programme on essential underpinning technologies including compact locked laser systems.

Jennifer was the Programme Chair of the VECSELs conference at SPIE Photonics West in 2013 and again in 2020, and was an active member of the Technical Programme Committee of the international OSA conference Advanced Solid-State Photonics 2009-2013. She is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Senior Member of the Optical Society of America, and in 2019 she served as a lecturer on the OSA Siegman International School on Lasers at the University of Rochester, USA.