A great day was had at our recent QPL Group Away Day 2024 – this year we took a boat tour along the Firth of Forth under the magnificent Forth Bridges and spotted some lazy looking, but frankly enormous, seals. The braver ones amongst us even stood outside in the bracing winds!

Huge congratulations to Dr Margherita Mazzera on her promotion to full Professor – well deserved Prof Margherita!!

Welcome to Dr Tobias Henksmeier who is joining us as a Visiting Scholar until the end of the year. As an expert in materials science he will be implementing a new joint project with a group from Paderborne University – welcome to Heriot-Watt and sunny Scotland Tobias!

We have several openings: one post-doc and one (international) PhD student positions on SiC quantum devices for quantum networking, and one post-doc position on novel ML-enhanced protocols for bio/chemical quantum sensing – all positions are part of large UK or EU collaborations on quantum technology. Get in touch with Cristian Bonato asap! More details in the “Openings” page.

Dr Johan joins us as a new post-doc who will be working on working on autonomous flake identification and equipment integration to assemble 2D heterostructures. Welcome to Scotland, Heriot-Watt and the QPL group Johan!!

Under a heavy rain, our QPL team completed the Edinburgh Half Marathon! Some witnesses report Nick was also there, but was just too fast to be caught on camera in the photo below

Dr Byeong Wood Cho joins us as our newest post-doc and will be working on moiré physics. Welcome to Heriot-Watt University and the QPL group Cho!

Federico Belliardo is joining us from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Federico has developed model-aware reinforcement learning methods to optimise quantum sensors, and will be collaborating with experimentalists to implement them in the lab. Borja Varona Uriarte is a PhD student in Bilbao, working with Jorge Casanova: he is joining us for a couple of months to collaborate with us on machine learning algorithms for nanoscale magnetic resonance.

Our Atomic Architects outreach exhibit was back on the road again, this time at the STEM @ the Helix event which was part of the Falkirk Science Festival. It was a fun filled 2 days for school pupils and families as well as all the volunteers from our group!!

Muhammad was one of the awardees for the “Distinguished Student Program” at this year’s APS March Meeting in Minneapolis! Congratulations, wonderful news!

Dr Zhe Li joins us as a new post-doc who will be working on optical nonlinear effects in moiré heterostructures. A huge, if somewhat chilly and frosty, welcome to Scotland, Heriot-Watt and the QPL group Zhe!!

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2024 – lang may yer lum reek!

Stefan is joining us as a new PhD student who will be working on improving the sensitivity of spin-based quantum sensors by employing machine learning techniques to reduce computing time. Welcome to the QPL group Stefan!

After initially booking this venue for December 2020, we finally got to enjoy a great Christmas lunch with very nearly the full QPL group!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Dr George Kourmoulakis joins us as a new post-doc who will be working on pick-and-place assembly of single sheets of atoms into moiré materials with high levels of uniformity. A huge welcome to Heriot-Watt and the QPL group George!!

A huge welcome to our 2 new PhD students Sachin and Prokhor who join us to start working on spectroscopy and quantum optics of the collectively coupled indistinguishable quantum emitters and fabrication and optical spectroscopy of transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures respectively. Welcome to the group both!!

New PhD student!

Welcome to our new PhD student Shivani who joins us to start working on spin-based quantum opto-electronic devices for quantum networking. Welcome to the QPL group Shivani!

Congratulations to 2 of our PhD students, Sheena and Finley!

Big congratulations to both Sheena and Finley who have won 1st year Postgraduate Research Prizes from the school of Engineering and Physical Sciences for their research posters presented at the Poster Event showcasing their individual research work. Nicely done both!!

Congratulations Dr Kogl!!

Huge congratulations to Max for successfully defending his viva and more importantly for using the Quaich correctly – well done Dr Max!

The first piece of equipment of our new Quantum Magnetometry facility has just been installed and successfully tested! A Bluefors dilution refrigerator will enable us to study complex materials and heterostructures and develop quantum technologies at milli-kelvin temperatures. Looking forward to learning some exciting new physics!