Category Archives: Alumni-Intern

Marcel Morillas

11/2023 Visiting Student on BEC1

I am Marcel Morillas, I completed my undergraduate studies at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Then, I pursued an MSc. in Photonics at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, where I did my Master’s Thesis on simulating one and two-mode squeezed light in topological photonic lattices as a member of the Quantum and Atom Optics Group (QAOS) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Beyond my scientific pursuits, I enjoy watching and playing sports, especially American football and playing the bass guitar.

Saurabh Pandey

07/2019 – 11/2019 Postdoc on BEC1
10/2013 – 07/2019 PhD Student on BEC1
06/2013 – 09/2013 Intern

Saurabh was PhD student and postdoc  on BEC 1 on guided matterwaves, where he was the first author on our Nature Paper demonstrating ring-shaped matterwave guides.

Saurabh is now a senior postdoc at the Sandia National Lab (in Albuquerque), where he is working on on atomic clocks and Rydberg quantum computing.

Before this, Saurabh worked  at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the group of Malcolm Boshier, where he was working on the demonstration of a novel atomtronic rotation sensor based on optical dipole potentials.

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Hector Mas of the Bec - Cretan Matter Waves Group

Hector Mas

06/2014 – 07/2019 PhD Student on BEC1
10/2013 – 06/2014 Internship on BEC 1

After a postdoc at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, he is now in the Weld Group at the UC Santa Barbara, California.

06/2014 to 07/2019 PhD Student on BEC 1 

10/2013 to 06/2014 Intern on BEC 1 
09/2012 to 09/2013 MsC in photonics at the Optics Laboratory of the University of Vigo 
Hector did his MSc at the Optics Laboratory of the University of Vigo at Ourense Campus, where he worked on the optimization of the photonic gauge for XHV under the supervision of Ángel Paredes.
10/2008 to 10/2012 Undergraduate at the University of Valencia
Hèctor graduated from the University of Valencia in 2012 and he went right after to Galicia to start a MsC in photonics at the Optics Laboratory of the University of Vigo at Ourense Campus. His last incursion in physics was a collaboration in the theoretical development of the Photonic Gauge of XHV.
 09/2008 to 09/2012 Undergraduate at the University of Valencia 
 Hèctor did his undergraduate studies at the Physics Faculty of the Universitat de València. There he also had a short internship at Energesis Group.

Debapriya Pal

07/2020-  to date Ph.D. student at AMOLF and the University of Amsterdam
09/2019-06/2020  Research Assistant on CEMIC and OBST2
05/2018-07/2018 Intern on laser-fiber optics

Deba worked mainly on OBST2. He took active participation in building the breadboard and the instrument control for measurements. He also took part in preliminary theoretical calculations and ZEMAX simulations for imaging systems for CEMIC.

From July 1st, 2020, he joined as a Ph.D. student in the Resonant Nanophotonics Group at AMOLF, Amsterdam, in a collaborative project of AMOLF, TU/e, and the LED-company Lumileds to improve next-generation solid-state lighting. He will receive his Ph.D. degree from the University of Amsterdam after completion.

In 2018 Debapriya Pal worked on an intern project to build a novel fiber-coupled slave laser.  He pursued the 5-year BS-MS Dual Degree Program in Physics at the Indian Institute of Science and Research Education, Kolkata (India) under Prof. Ayan Banerjee. During his master thesis, he explored the spin-orbit interaction of tightly focused light beams in optical tweezers using angular spectrum representation, designed with a stratified medium in the path of the trapping beam.

Debapriya Pal was awarded the prestigious  2018 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by the international society for optics and photonics SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics for his potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics, or related field.

He is now his Ph.D. student in the group of Femius Koenderink  working on Resonant Nanophotonics.

Anamika Nair Karunakaran

05/2016-08/2016 Intern on an LabView project

Anamika joined us from the Cochin University of Science and Technology South Kalamassery in Kerala, India. She went on to do her master in the Quantum Information with Cold Atoms and Non-classical Light Group of Morgan Mitchel at the ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain. She is now working on her PhD at the Technical University of Denmark in collaboration with the laser manufacturer NKT Photonics. She will be part of the EU project  ETN-MEFISTA (Multi-scale fibre-based optical frequency combs: science, technology and applications).

Martins Bruvelis

07/2010 to 09/2010 Internship on Crete

Martins was visiting us the from University of Latvia to work on the BEC1 experiment, when he did some excellent work manly on the computer control of the experiment.

After doing his a Ph.D. in University of Latvia and continuing research at the Laser Centre of University of Latvia, he is now a Senior Information Technology Specialist at the CEMSE – Computer, Electrical And Mathematical Sciences And Engineering Division of KAUST.

 01/2014 to 01/2018 PhD student at the Laser Centre of University of Latvia.
10/2010 to 10/2014 Research Assistant  at the Laser Centre of University of Latvia.
07/2010 to 09/2010 Internship on Crete
01/2007 to 09/2010 Undergraduate Studies