Ph.D. full scholarship position on End-to-end incoherent holographic imaging

Department of Applied Physics and Photonics

Organisation/Company VUB Department Department of Applied Physics and Photonics Research Field Engineering » Precision engineering Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions PhD Positions Final date to receive applications 31 Aug 2026 - 23:59 (Europe/Brussels) Country Belgium Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 38 Offer Starting Date 1 Oct 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

The Brussels Photonics ( B-PHOT ) team from the department of Applied Physics and Photonics, and the Department of Electronics and Informatics( ETRO ), an imec research groupat the Vrije Universiteit Brussel ( VUB )have an open research position for a talented and motivated researcher.

Conventional cameras capture two-dimensional images, even though our world is three-dimensional (3D). This lack of depth information limits measurements and restricts our understanding of the complexity of recorded 3D objects and environments.

Holography does not have these shortcomings, as it can record and reproduce the full wavefield of light, both amplitude and phase information. However, holography relies on light interference, and demands highly coherent light. That is why holograms are typically recorded in controlled laboratory conditions with, e.g., lasers.

Recent advancements have addressed this constraint through the development of incoherent holographic camera prototypes. These prototypes can decompose incoherent light into mutually interfering coherent wavefronts, enabling the recording of color holograms using natural light sources such as sunlight and indoor lighting. This technology would allow for plenoptic 3D information encoding with natural light.

Today, the holograms are still noisy and of limited quality. One important reason is the inaccurate, incoherent light propagation models and the absence of underlying 3D scene representations. This requires the designing and developing of specialized computer-generated hologram (CGH) algorithms, modeling the propagation of incoherent light through space. Numerical diffraction calculations are highly computationally intensive, so efficient parallelizable software implementations are necessary.

This research will investigate and develop sophisticated algorithms for the propagation of incoherent light, novel computational algorithms for solving inverse problems to retrieve denoised and high-resolution holographic recordings, and motion compensation techniques.

In this PhD research project, the candidate will design a novel end-to-end incoherent holographic imaging system, and prototype both the camera optics and hardware
. It will happen in close collaboration with other researchers from VUB ETRO and the National Institute of Information and Communication Technology ( NICT ) in Japan. They will focus on the algorithms and simulators to drive high-end, incoherent holographic camera systems.

The main goal of this PhD position is to develop a generalized differentiable optical propagation model and optimize the related optics for realizing an incoherent holographic camera system capturing holograms in natural light environments with unprecedented quality.

The involved research team B-PHOT is internationally recognized for its distinct contributions to photonics. B-PHOT has been key in integrating the European photonics R&D landscape for over 30 years, with research expertise in optical design, modeling, and prototyping for various applications. B-PHOT's key research topics include prototyping micro-optical components/systems and freeform optical components for imaging and non-imaging optics.

This research will also happen in close collaboration with the researchers at the Department of Electronics and Informatics ( ETRO ), an imec research group at VUB and the National Institute of Information and Communication Technology ( NICT ) in Japan.

• MSc degree focusing on optical engineering, photonics,…