Category Archives: Alumni Postdoc

Vasiliki Bolpasi

05/2014 –  10/2020 Research Assistant on BEC2 and AtomQT
02/2009 – 04/2014 PhD Student
09/2006 – 06/2008 Master Student

Vasiliki joined the Cretan Matter-Waves Group in October 2005 as an undergraduate student. She graduated from the Physics Department of the University of Crete in October 2006. Right after that, she started her Master in Optoelectronics – Microelectronics in the University of Crete, where she completed her master thesis working on high-power tapered-diode lasers. She has recently finished her PhD on high flux atom lasers and now she works in our lab as a postdoc. She is now teaching at the University of Crete.

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.

Continue reading →

Picture of Iván Alonso Miguel

Ivan Alonso Miguel

06/2015 – 10/2016 Postdoc on BEC 2

During his postdoc on Crete he worked on the stability of BEC and its phase fluctuations as well as the “Q-factor”.

Before joining us, Ivan did his MsC in Instrumentation in Physics followed by his PhD at the Applied Physics Department of the University of Salamanca and the University of Salamanca. During this period he worked on the Equilibrium Thermodynamic characterization of liquids, liquid mixtures, the microscopic interpretation of the data via well-known statistical models based on the Guggenheim (quasi-Ising) lattice model, Flory equation of state and contribution group methods like DISQUAC and UNIFAC.

After doing a postdoc at the University of Burgos, Ivan is now a  Professor at the Universitat de les Illes Balears.

Giannis Drougakis

Alumnus Postdoc
10/2021 – 7/2024 Postdoc on BEC 1 and Space Optics
11/2016 – 10/2021 PhD Student on BEC 1 and OBST
03/2015 – 10/2016 Master Student on the ESA-OBST project

Giannis joined the Cretan Matter Waves group in March 2015 to work on the ESA-OBST project. He holds a diploma in electrical and computer engineering (2012) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He received his master’s degree from the inter-institutional graduate program “Vision and Optics”, of the University of Crete finishing his master thesis entitled “Vibrational and angular stability of optical systems for space applications” in December 2015. He continued for his PhD working on BEC 1 and OBST, graduating in October 2021. He is now a postdoc on BEC 1 and OBST. He is going to be the head of telecommunications at the airport in Heraklion and will be in charge of this topic at the new airport in Kastelli

Kostas Poulios

day11/2014 – 07/2017 : postdoc on BEC 1 and Space Optics

Kostas got his Bachelor’s Degree in Physics at the Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he majored on Solid State Physics and Optics.

He then started his PhD in 2009 at the Centre for Quantum Photonics, University of Bristol, under the supervision of Prof. Jeremy O’Brien, where he did experimental research on integrated quantum photonics for quantum information and quantum computation science. His main focus was on implementation of multi-photon integrated quantum walks, with dissertation titled: Integrated Photonic Continuous-Time Quantum Walks.

He then did a short post-doc in 2014 still with Prof. Jeremy O’Brien at the Centre for Quantum Photonics, working in a collaboration with Prof. Axel Kuhn’s Atom-Photon Connection group at Oxford University. He was also a visiting post-doctoral research assistant (early 2015) at the Atom-Photon Connection group, Oxford University. The scope of the collaboration was to use a deterministic single photon source (single Rb87 atoms in a cavity) to perform quantum logic experiments on integrated photonic devices.

In November 2014 he joined the Cretan Matter-Waves / Bose-Einstein Condensation group, I.E.S.L., FO.R.T.H. in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, where he is since working as a post-doctoral researcher. His main project is the implementation of a fully-guided, ring-shaped, Sagnac-type atom-interferometer using time-averaged adiabatic potentials (TAAPs) and Rb87 Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs).

In summer 2017, Kostas joined the cold atoms group of Thomas Fernholz at Nottingham University.

Benjamin Sherlock

04/2012-05/2013 Postdoc on BEC 1

Before joining us at the Cretan Matter-Waves Ben his D.Phil. at Oxford University and before this M.Sci. at Hatfield College, University of Durham. Ben is one of the pioneers of Time-Averaged-Adiabatic Potentials with the first demonstration of the double TAAP and the TAAP ring.  Ben is now a Lecturer in Translational Biophotonics at the University of Exeter, England, United Kingdom.

Michael Morrissey

 09/2009 – 08/2011 Postdoc on BEC2

Before coming to Crete I graduated from Cork Insitutute of Technology (CIT) with a B.Sc. in “Applied Physics and Instrumentation” in 2004. As part of completeing the B.Sc. a five month project was undertaken. This project, entitled “Quality Surveillance Algorithms for Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifiers”, was carried out in the Information and Communication Network (ICN) Department at Siemens AG research facility in Munich. The project entailed research into how the aging of components with the EDFA can be monitored using algorithms. From a mathematical model, the key parameters needed to detect the degradation/aging of the EDFA were determined. In addition to theoretical work, optical experiments were carried out to determine a technique to measure the required parapeters. A procedure was developed to test the feasibility and accuracy of the EDFA model.

From my experience in Siemens AG, I developed an interest in optics and decided to pursue this interest. I started my PhD in September 2004 with the Quantum Optics Group under the supervision of Dr. Síle Nic Chormaic, in the area of “Control of cold rubidium atoms“.

I built the first cold atom experiment in South-Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and then moved on to work at Extreme Light Infrastructure in Prague

Jules Grucker

11/2008 to 08/2009 Postdoc on BEC 2

Jules joined the Cretan Matter Waves group in Novembe 2008. He started in Sptember 2009 in the the LKB solid helium group led by Ph. Jacquier. He is a Maître de Conférences at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and is a researcher at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He passed his Thèse d’État in 2018. He did his undergraduate degree in physics at University Strasbourg 1. He then went with an Erasmus scholarship to do his first Master degree at the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark. After this he returned to France to do a second Master degree, this time at the the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris under the supervision of Paul Indelicato (currently director of Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Ecole Normale Supérieure). For his PhD he went to the Institute Galilée of the Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers (University Paris 13). There he joined the IOA (Interferometry and Optics with Atoms) team of Martial Ducloy. He stayed on for one more year as a post-doc before coming to Crete.

Jules is now a lecturer at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel at Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris, where he studies the properties of solid Helium with the aim of demonstrating a super solid.

11/2008 to 08/2009 Postdoc at the Cretan Matter Waves group
05/2006 to 05/2008 PhD Student at the Institute Galilée of the Laboratoire de Physique
05/2001 to 05/2006 Undergraduate degree in physics at University Strasbourg 1

Olivier Morizot

Mark Baker