Doctorate of the Year in Photonics
Photonics Finland and the Flagship for Photonics Research and Innovation PREIN co-organized the Optics and Photonics Days (OPD 2022) in Tampere on September 6-8.
The winners of both categories, Company of the Year and Dissertation of the Year in the field of photonics were announced at the event.
The doctoral thesis of Antti Moilanen titled "Bose -Einstein condensation in plasmonic lattices” Aalto University was chosen as the photonics dissertation of the year 2022.
The doctoral research deals with plasmonics , i.e. the interaction of light with metallic nano-sized structures.
This dissertation introduces the first Bose-Einstein condensate in a plasmonic system and investigates the properties of the condensate both in the weak and strong coupling regimes. The condensate studied in this work is half a millimeter long, making it reportedly the largest luminous condensate to date. In addition, the dissertation presents a new theoretical model for strongly coupled organic systems.
Room temperature operation, robustness, and high luminosity of the samples provides a promising platform for fundamental studies of quantum dynamics in non-equilibrium systems. The coherent light produced by the condensate can potentially be utilized, for example, in the fields of sensing, optical communications, and quantum information technology.
Read more in the Aalto University's dissertation bulletin :
https://www.aalto.fi/en/events/defence-of-doctoral-thesis-in-the-field-of-applied-physics-msc-antti-moilanen
Dissertation (pdf): https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/109637
The best dissertation is selected by Photonics Finland's academic advisory board, chaired by Professor Mircea Guina from Tampere University. All universities conducting photonics research in Finland are represented in the advisory board.
Moilanen's dissertation was the only one that received full marks from all evaluators for the scientific impact of the work. The subject of the dissertation covers the topics of optical physics, plasmonics and Bose -Einstein condensation, also experimentally. The work includes several new experimental demonstrations. The dissertation is detailed, extensive and very well structured - all in all, impressive also in terms of the author's own contribution. The articles of the dissertation have been published in highly respected journals ( Nature Physics , Nature Communications, Nano Letters and 2 Physical Review Letters), which are all journals of the highest publication category.
The doctoral thesis and company of the year in the field of photonics are selected annually in connection with the Optics and Photonics Days (OPD)
More information:
Dr. Antti Moilanen
ETH Zurich
Switzerland
amoilanen@ethz.ch
Juha Purmonen
Executive Director, Photonics Finland
Tel.+358 50 354 3832
juha.purmonen@photonics.fi
Professor Mircea Guina
University of Tampere
Tel. +358 40 849 0004
mircea.guina@tuni.fi
