Valentin Haemmerli
Postgraduate Researcher (Metamaterials CDT 2018)
Location: Physics G33
Telephone: 01392 725018
Extension: (Streatham) 5018
Research interests
- Nanofabrication and integrated optics
- Quantum optics
- Nanophotonics
- Single photon sources
- Quantum emitters in 2D materials
- Quantum information processing, communication and cryptography, computing
Background
I graduated from the University of Bath in 2018 with a master's degree in physics (incl. 12-month industrial placement). The placement in my third year was at a multinational design and consultancy firm, in the nuclear business unit. My role was safety and risk management and environmental assessment. The placement also included a joint project with students at the University of Bath performing computer simulation of radiation dose from nuclear waste sources and comparing to a simple model. The placement resulted in two publications and a joint prize for best poster presentation at the Society for Radiological Protection annual conference 2016.
My master's project involved the production of photon pairs in a non-linear crystal ($\beta$-Barium Borate) pumped by a 405 nm diode laser. Collection of entangled pairs from Type-II non-collinear spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) into fibre for detection. Entanglement testing with avalanche photodetectors and polarisation control. Innovative for the use of a very cheap continuous wave (CW) diode laser pump and otherwise common optics components, the main aim of the project was to demonstrate a cost-effective, efficient and achievable source of entanglement.
In September 2018 I joined the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Metamaterials (XM2) as a postgraduate researcher. My PhD project focuses on increasing the single photon rates of a solid-state source by integrating emitters with hybrid metal-dielectric resonators. My project is supervised by Dr Isaac Luxmoore and Professor Bill Barnes.