Professor Jon Heffernan

PhD, BSc

School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Professor in Electrical Engineering

National Epitaxy Facility Research Group

Headshot of Jon Heffernan
Profile picture of Headshot of Jon Heffernan
jon.heffernan@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 5165

Full contact details

Professor Jon Heffernan
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Profile

I graduated with a PhD in Physics from Trinity College Dublin in 1994 with a thesis on optical switching for optical computing applications.

From 1994 to 1996 I was a post-doctoral researcher working on the first blue-green laser diodes in collaboration with Sony Corporation. From 1996 to 2013 I was employed in the European research laboratories of Sharp Corporation in Oxford, eventually as Director of Advanced Optoelectronic Devices for the company.

In this seventeen years in industrial research I was involved in the development of three generations of optical storage technology: CD, DVD and Blu-ray.

I also led research and development on LED lighting and display technologies using blue LEDs and novel quantum dot phosphors, and on record-holding Silicon and GaAs-based solar cells. Much of this work was transferred into mass production and commercialised globally.

In 2013 I joined the University of Sheffield as Professor of Semiconductor Materials and Devices and concurrently Director of the EPSRC National Epitaxy Facility.


My current research is in the area of Quantum Science and Technology especially the epitaxy of semiconductor quantum dots which are used in developing single photon and entangled photon sources for quantum communications and quantum information processing.

I am also active in manufacturing research for photonics and I am deputy Director of the Future Photonics Manufacturing Hub with the University of Southampton.

Qualifications
  • PhD, Trinity College Dublin
  • BSc (Physics), Cork
Research interests
  • Epitaxy of novel semiconductors materials and devices
  • Molecular beam epitaxy
  • Semiconductor nanostructures and their applications
  • Nitride-based semiconductors and their applications
Publications

Journal articles

Conference proceedings papers

Datasets

Preprints

  • Phillips CL, Brash AJ, Godsland M, Martin NJ, Foster A, Tomlinson A, Dost R, Babazadeh N, Sala EM, Wilson L , Heffernan J et al (2023) Purcell-Enhanced Single Photons at Telecom Wavelengths from a Quantum Dot in a Photonic Crystal Cavity, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Schofield RC, Fu M, Clarke E, Farrer I, Trapalis A, Dhar HS, Mukherjee R, Heffernan J, Mintert F, Nyman RA & Oulton RF (2023) Bose-Einstein Condensation of Light in a Semiconductor Quantum Well Microcavity, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Shooter G, Xiang Z, Müller JRA, Skiba-Szymanska J, Huwer J, Griffiths J, Mitchell T, Anderson M, Müller T, Krysa AB , Stevenson RM et al (2020) 1GHz clocked distribution of electrically generated entangled photon pairs, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Anderson M, Müller T, Huwer J, Skiba-Szymanska J, Krysa AB, Stevenson RM, Heffernan J, Ritchie DA & Shields AJ (2020) GHz-clocked teleportation of time-bin qubits with a telecom C-band quantum dot, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Mehrabad MJ, Foster AP, Dost R, Clarke E, Patil PK, Farrer I, Heffernan J, Skolnick MS & Wilson LR (2019) A Semiconductor Topological Photonic Ring Resonator, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Anderson M, Müller T, Huwer J, Skiba-Szymanska J, Krysa AB, Stevenson RM, Heffernan J, Ritchie DA & Shields AJ (2019) Quantum teleportation using highly coherent emission from telecom C-band quantum dots, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Müller T, Skiba-Szymanska J, Krysa A, Huwer J, Felle M, Anderson M, Stevenson RM, Heffernan J, Ritchie DA & Shields AJ (2017) A quantum light emitting diode for the standard telecom window around 1550 nm, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Skiba-Szymanska J, Stevenson RM, Varnava C, Felle M, Huwer J, Müller T, Bennett AJ, Lee JP, Farrer I, Krysa A , Spencer P et al (2016) Universal growth scheme for entanglement-ready quantum dots, arXiv. RIS download Bibtex download
Professional activities and memberships
  • Professor of Semiconductor Materials and Devices
  • Director of EPSRC National Epitaxy Facility
  • Deputy Director of the Future Photonics Manufacturing Hub
Research students
Student Degree Status Primary/Secondary
Trapalis, A PhD Graduated Primary
Chen, X MPhil Graduated Primary
Jiang, S PhD Graduated Secondary
Godsland, M PhD Current Primary
Young, I N PhD Current Primary
Wang, C PhD Current  Primary
Ovenden, C PhD Current  Secondary
Sharaf, A PhD Current  Secondary