The current technologies and network architectures for the storage network support high quality multimedia data delivery for mobile or remote computing users in the distributed or wireless environments but at a high cost of ownership. As more and more network subscribers join existing distributed storage network the costs of maintaining the reliability and data delivery performance will grow significantly. The research proposal is focussed on a novel distributed storage architecture which addresses the concerns over scalability, reliability and speed. We aim to tackle these problems by introducing a combined strategy for the storage network to efficiently distribute data objects over the storage nodes through intelligent caching, eliminate the need for retransmission by properly controlling packet loss, and subsequently ensure reliable and speedy delivery of high-quality data to mobile computing users. In the new storage system proposed, storage nodes or multiple mirror sites store a sub-set of properly encoded packets of the files with a substantially large size. Upon the request of a file at an access node, the neighbouring nodes will contribute their sub-set of the packets towards the reconstruction of the file requested. This scheme saves storage space, distributes traffic loads across different links, and enables reliable data transfer from source nodes to the clients in parallel. It is intended that the performance gains achieved by using the new scheme will be examined against the costs and overheads involved for different types and scales of applications. The research will be carried out at Aston University and partnered by Xyratex, a technology and market leader in the OEM storage network industry.

SeaMatics is an "advanced materials manufacturing project for photonic integrated circuits" for a range of emerging applications in optical communication, sensors, imaging technology for healthcare, and lighting. Unlike the integration in electronic circuits in which electrons flow seamlessly, in photonic integrated circuits at the light does not flow seamlessly due to mismatch of refractive index and materials dissimilarity. In order to facilitate a way forward for fabricating light circuits, the SeaMatics team has embarked on research which will exploit a novel "ultrafast laser plasma implantation (ULPI)" based technique for fabricating complex structures, using following materials: rare-earth ion doped glass, polymers and silicon and GaAs semiconductors. Such a combinatorial approach for materials fabrication will yield photonic circuit for engineering range energy-efficient devices for cross-sectorial applications (health, manufacturing, energy, digital). The project is led by the University of Leeds and is supported by has four academic partners by the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield and York in the respective areas of research on polymeric devices, III-V semiconductors, and silicon photonics. The EPSRC National Centre for III-V Technologies will be accessed for materials and device fabrication. Eleven industry partners directly involved in the project are: DSTL, GTS/British Glass, Glucosense/NetScientific, Product Evolution, PVD Products, CST, IQE, Dow Corning, Xyratex, Gooch and Housego and Semtech. The industry links covers from materials manufacturing to optical components and their applications in optical/data communication, sensors for healthcare, energy for lighting. In this partnership the manufacturing is linked with different levels of supply chain, which we aim to demonstrate by researching on exemplar devices as end points. The main goals of the project are a) Set up a ULPI manufacturing capability at Leeds which will serve the needs of academic and industrial communities in UK to start with and then expand for international collaboration. b) Our first application led manufacturing example will demonstrate ULPI based RE-earth doped glass photonic circuits with light splitting, lasing and amplification functions on a chip. c) In another example we will demonstrate electrically pumped semiconductor lasers (VCSEL and VECSEL) and integrated with rare-earth ion doped glass for broadband and tunable lasers. d) Approaches developed in b) and c) will be then expanded for manufacturing larger scale photonic integrated circuits on silicon, embodying multiple functions using the techniques developed in a). e) ULPI as technique will be applied for engineering novel range of polymer-glass sensor devices which will be used for health care. f) The final goal of project is to provide training, dissemination, and outreach opportunities for new researchers in SeaMatics. Dissemination related activities will be via the standard peer-review publications in prestigious journals, conferences and workshops. Dedicated symposia are planned for dissemination, and also the outreach activities involving UG/PG interns, PhD students and Sixth form pupils.

Photonics is one of six EU "Key Enabling Technologies. The US recently announced a $200M programme for Integrated Photonics Manufacturing to improve its competiveness. As a UK response, the research proposed here will advance the pervasive technologies for future manufacturing identified in the UK Foresight report on the Future of Manufacturing, improving the manufacturability of optical sensors, functional materials, and energy-efficient growth in the transmission, manipulation and storage of data. Integration is the key to low-cost components and systems. The Hub will address the grand challenge of optimising multiple cross-disciplinary photonic platform technologies to enable integration through developing low-cost fabrication processes. This dominant theme unites the requirements of the UK photonics (and photonics enabled) industry, as confirmed by our consultation with over 40 companies, Catapults, and existing CIMs. Uniquely, following strong UK investment in photonics, we include most of the core photonic platforms available today in our Hub proposal that exploits clean room facilities valued at £200M. Research will focus on both emerging technologies having greatest potential impact on industry, and long-standing challenges in existing photonics technology where current manufacturing processes have hindered industrial uptake. Platforms will include: Metamaterials: One of the challenges in metamaterials is to develop processes for low-cost and high-throughput manufacturing. Advanced metamaterials produced in laboratories depend on slow, expensive production processes such as electron beam writing and are difficult to produce in large sizes or quantities. To secure industrial take up across a wide variety of practical applications, manufacturing methods that allow nanostructure patterning across large areas are required. Southampton hosts a leading metamaterials group led by Prof Zheludev and is well positioned to leverage current/future EPSRC research investments, as well as its leading intellectual property position in metamaterials. High-performance special optical fibres: Although fibres in the UV and mid-IR spectral range have been made, few are currently commercial owing to issues with reliability, performance, integration and manufacturability. This platform will address the manufacturing scalability of special fibres for UV, mid-IR and for ultrahigh power sources, as requested by current industrial partners. Integration with III-V sources and packaging issues will also be addressed, as requested by companies exploiting special fibres in laser-based applications. In the more conventional near-infrared wavelength regime, we will focus on designs and processes to make lasers and systems cheaper, more efficient and more reliable. Integrated Silicon Photonics: has made major advances in the functionality that has been demonstrated at the chip level. Arguably, it is the only platform that potentially offers full integration of all the key components required for optical circuit functionality at low cost, which is no doubt why the manufacturing giant, Intel, has invested so much. The key challenge remains to integrate silicon with optical fibre devices, III-V light sources and the key components of wafer-level manufacture such as on line test and measurement. The Hub includes the leading UK group in silicon photonics led by Prof Graham Reed. III-V devices: Significant advances have been made in extending the range of III-V light sources to the mid-IR wavelength region, but key to maximise their impact is to enable their integration with optical fibres and other photonics platforms, by simultaneous optimisation of the III-V and surrounding technologies. A preliminary mapping of industrial needs has shown that integration with metamaterial components optimised for mid-IR would be highly desirable. Sheffield hosts the EPSRC III-V Centre and adds a powerful light emitting dimension to the Hub.

This proposal seeks funding to create a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Integrated Photonic and Electronic Systems. Photonics plays an increasing role in systems, ranging from sensing, biophotonics and manufacturing, through communications from the chip-to-chip to transcontinental scale, to the plethora of new screen and projection display technologies that have been developed, bringing higher resolution, lower power operation and enabling new ways of human-machine interaction. These advances have set the scene for a major change in commercialisation activity where photonics and electronics will converge in a wide range of information, sensing, communications, manufacturing and personal healthcare systems. Currently, systems are realised by combining separately developed photonic components, such as lasers and photodetectors with electronic circuits. This approach is labour intensive and requires many electrical interconnects as well as optical alignment on the micron scale. Devices are optimised separately and then brought together to meet systems specifications. Such an approach, although it has delivered remarkable results, not least the communications systems upon which the internet depends, limits the benefits that could come from the full integration of photonics with electronics and systems. To achieve such integration requires researchers who have not only deep understanding of their specialist area, but also an excellent understanding across the fields of electronic and photonic hardware and software. This proposal therefore seeks to meet this important need, building upon the uniqueness and extent of the UCL and Cambridge research, where research activities are already focussing on the direct monolithic integration of lasers with silicon electronics, new types of displays based on polymer and holographic projection technology, the application of photonic communications to computing, personal information systems and indeed consumer products (via board-to-board, chip to chip and later on-chip interconnects), the increased use of photonics in industrial processing and manufacture, techniques for the low-cost roll-out of optical fibre to replace the copper network, the substitution of many conventional lighting products with photonic light sources and extensive application of photonics in medical diagnostics and personalised medicine. Many of these activities will increasingly rely on more advanced electronic systems integration, and so the proposed CDT includes experts in electronic circuits, computer systems and software. By drawing these complementary activities together, and building upon initial work towards this goal carried out within our previously funded CDT in Photonic Systems Development, it is proposed to develop an advanced training programme to equip the next generation of very high calibre doctoral students with the required technical expertise, commercial and business skills, and thus provide innovation opportunities for the integration of photonic and electronics in new systems in the coming years. It should be stressed that the CDT will provide a wide range of methods for learning for research students, well beyond that conventionally available, so that they can gain the required skills. In addition to conventional lectures and seminars, for example, there will be bespoke experimental coursework activities, reading clubs, roadmapping activities, secondments to companies and other research laboratories and business planning courses. The integration of photonic and electronic systems is likely to widen the range of systems into which these technologies are deployed in other key sectors of the economy, such as printing, consumer electronics, computing, defence, energy, engineering, security and medicine. As a result, a key feature of the CDT will be a developed awareness in its student cohorts of the breadth of opportunity available and a confidence that they can make impact therein.

The achievements of modern research and their rapid progress from theory to application are increasingly underpinned by computation. Computational approaches are often hailed as a new third pillar of science - in addition to empirical and theoretical work. While its breadth makes computation almost as ubiquitous as mathematics as a key tool in science and engineering, it is a much younger discipline and stands to benefit enormously from building increased capacity and increased efforts towards integration, standardization, and professionalism. The development of new ideas and techniques in computing is extremely rapid, the progress enabled by these breakthroughs is enormous, and their impact on society is substantial: modern technologies ranging from the Airbus 380, MRI scans and smartphone CPUs could not have been developed without computer simulation; progress on major scientific questions from climate change to astronomy are driven by the results from computational models; major investment decisions are underwritten by computational modelling. Furthermore, simulation modelling is emerging as a key tool within domains experiencing a data revolution such as biomedicine and finance. This progress has been enabled through the rapid increase of computational power, and was based in the past on an increased rate at which computing instructions in the processor can be carried out. However, this clock rate cannot be increased much further and in recent computational architectures (such as GPU, Intel Phi) additional computational power is now provided through having (of the order of) hundreds of computational cores in the same unit. This opens up potential for new order of magnitude performance improvements but requires additional specialist training in parallel programming and computational methods to be able to tap into and exploit this opportunity. Computational advances are enabled by new hardware, and innovations in algorithms, numerical methods and simulation techniques, and application of best practice in scientific computational modelling. The most effective progress and highest impact can be obtained by combining, linking and simultaneously exploiting step changes in hardware, software, methods and skills. However, good computational science training is scarce, especially at post-graduate level. The Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Computational Modelling will develop 55+ graduate students to address this skills gap. Trained as future leaders in Computational Modelling, they will form the core of a community of computational modellers crossing disciplinary boundaries, constantly working to transfer the latest computational advances to related fields. By tackling cutting-edge research from fields such as Computational Engineering, Advanced Materials, Autonomous Systems and Health, whilst communicating their advances and working together with a world-leading group of academic and industrial computational modellers, the students will be perfectly equipped to drive advanced computing over the coming decades.