A great night was had by all sampling Robert Burns’ favourite supper of haggis, neeps & tatties…followed of course by some traditional whisky tasting!!

Several new group members are starting this week: Issam (PhD student, working on quantum magnetometry of 2D complex materials), Alex (PhD student, working on SiC quantum devices), Bibi (PhD student, working on quantum photonics with 2D semicnductors) and Harikumar (post-doc, working on fiber-connectorisation of quantum photonic devices). Welcome all!

Huge congratulations to Dr Cristian Bonato on his well deserved promotion to Professor – great work Prof Cristian!!

An 18-month Theoretical Post-Doctoral Research Associate position is available, under the supervision of Cristian Bonato on the application of Bayesian inference and machine learning to nanoscale quantum sensing and magnetic resonance. Please get in touch asap if interested!

Welcome to our new PhD student Tatyana who joins us to start working on fabrication, characterisation, and tuning of 2D quantum materials. Welcome to the QPL group Tatyana!

Aidan Campbell successfully defended his PhD today, with a thesis on ‘Optical Investigation of Many-Body Interactions in Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Heterostructures’. Congratulations Dr Aidan, and good luck as you begin your new career here in the group as an EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellow!!

The Thesis Prizes are awarded each year for the highest quality submissions of a doctorate degree which have been examined within EPS in the previous 12 months – congratulations Zak on being one of this year’s winners!

Huge congrats to Aidan who has been awarded the EPSRC Doctoral Prize and will be working on the autonomous manufacturing of 2D-semiconductor heterostructures over the next 12 months. Well done Aidan!

Congrats to Dr. Zak Koong, who has been awarded the 2022 MacFarlane Prize from Heriot-Watt. The Prize is presented annually to the PhD graduate from Heriot-Watt who has made the most outstanding contribution to the research of the University.

Finley has recently graduated from the MPhys Physics course at Heriot-Watt and has now started working with Margherita on developing integrated quantum memories in rare earth doped crystals. Welcome to the group Finley!

Huge congratulations to Fred who was one of the IPaQS First Year Postgraduate Research Prize winners! 1st year Postgraduate Research Prizes were based on the research posters presented at the Poster Event. These posters were judged on the quality and presentation of the research work – keep up the good work Fred!

Keiran has joined us as our new EngD student and will be working with us and Razorbill Instruments. Welcome to the group Keiran!

We have two post-doc positions available, one experimental on low-temperature scanning single-spin magnetometry and one theoretical on machine learning applied to quantum sensing. Please contact Cristian Bonato asap! More information here.

Christiaan Bekker got awarded a 5-years fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering, to develop quantum opto-electronic devices in silicon carbide. Congratulations Christiaan and looking forward to amazing results!

Shining sun and blue sky for our group hike to the top of Ben Vrackie! The calories lost were soon compensated by a great dinner together, with adequate beer supply.

Huge congratulations on your graduation day Zak, from the whole QPL group – have a fantastic day!

Congrats to our PhD students Maximillian Kögl & Aidan Campbell, who have been crowned winners of the Innovation Challenge Competition at Heriot-Watt, securing a £5,000 prize to kick-start a spin-out company aiming to revolutionize van der Waals device fabrication!

Dr Zeeshan will be joining us on 1st April 2022 as a research associate from the University of Edinburgh, UK and will be working on the autonomous solutions to assemble the two-dimensional materials with high level of precision, accuracy and speed. Welcome to the group Zeeshan!

Daniel White successfully defended his PhD today, with a thesis on “Novel Quantum Emitters for Integrated Quantum Photonics”. Congratulations Daniel, and all the best with your new career as a data scientist!

Want to study the exotic physics of correlated electrons in 2D materials with a quantum sensor? There’s a great PhD opportunity waiting for you, which includes a 9 month stay at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. Please email Cristian asap for more info (UK nationals only)