Ben Hanley is chair of the Opening up Photonics steering committee, in this role he interviewed Sophia Fox, an experienced Optical Engineer at EDR Medeso, about her journey from struggling with maths to a flourishing international career in Photonics!
In Part two we hear about how Sophia learned what was right for her and what attracted her to a career in Photonics.
What attracted you to Photonics and choosing your degree?
For some reason I loved electromagnetics, they had these courses at university that were my favourite, ironically these were the courses that everyone else in my group hated, but I loved them and I loved the maths modules as well, which again, everyone around me despised. I don’t know, I just like it when things are quite difficult. It’s a challenge. I just love looking at maths. It’s like listening to music. It’s really hard to explain, it’s really satisfying going through the steps and just letting it wash around you like music.
I believe there is a very strong correlation between musicality and maths.
Oh, OK. I never had an instrument, so I’ll have to think about that. But yes, it was just very satisfying. It really helped me understand how things work from a much more conceptual view. I was always quite interested in quantum physics for this reason. How quantum physics works, it all blows my mind that you cannot explain certain things with words or analogies and then you sort of get into that philosophy side of things. I’ve always quite liked it.
I’ve liked the difficult, challenging description of how things work with electromagnetics and then from that with photonics. I enjoy how, especially with simulation, you could see how the light behaves. The work for my PhD dissertation was really satisfying setting that up and seeing how the light behaves.
You see those visualisations and it was just very satisfying. With photonics, you’re making the light behave in unique ways and engineering where you want the light to go. And when you start to add something “simple” like loss, the equations already get quite complicated.
With very complex problems, one will often need to resort to numerical simulation. I always wanted to avoid just plugging in the model into simulation software and I prefer to try to simplify the problem and explain it in as analytical a way as possible. I like to use the maths to analyse the problems and solve the puzzle
What elements of the photonics industry are exciting you at the moment?
I’m quite interested by the lithium niobate technology, because the material has fascinating properties. In my job I’ve seen lithium niobate used in real applications such as electro optic phase modulators, and that exposure made me want to understand how it works and its potential. The material’s nonlinear optics—such as second-harmonic generation and its thermal properties all stem from its interesting crystal structure. I’m motivated to understand the underlying physics, simulate those effects, and I would love an opportunity to work on an application in quantum photonic integrated circuits that leverage these properties.
I am also seeing a rise in applications in quantum computing using quantum photonic integrated circuits, this is another field that fascinates me. I’m looking forward to a chance to simulate how these circuits actually work: understanding the maths behind quantum interference, how quantum information is carried and manipulated by light on-chip, things like this. I’m also interested in how these circuits are practically realised and how loss, noise, and so on impact the performance. I think here, simulation can be extremely helpful for advances in quantum computing.
What can the industry do to attract more people and with that more girls and women? What would you suggest we can do?
I think it’s easier if there’s already women in the industry to attract more women. Everyone’s different but if you are in a minority you might benefit from having a safe channel to vent frustrations without being made to feel guilty/emotional because they’re a woman. Having a supportive mentor to provide both technical guidance and empathetic understanding makes a huge difference.
When I worked offshore, I think that’s the first time I encountered mentoring. So I had a very good boss. He mentored me very well and there was that sense of humour. Culturally the people offshore also kind of looked out for you. I think they were aware that I was a bit scared being in such a male dominated environment so they made an effort to not exclude me from anything and taught me many skills. Everyone looked out for each other and worked together.
Any advice you would give to girls coming through anything that you’ve learned that you would pass on to them?
I’d say don’t expect things to go as planned and don’t give up when that happens.
I had a bit of a crisis after my PhD, because I had always wanted to be in academia, but its not how it use to be anymore. When it doesn’t go your way, go with the flow. New opportunities can happen out of nowhere as long as you don’t give up and wallow in a sort of self pity (which I did for a while).
