After the recent phD defenses, two more freshly graduated students left the lab for continuing their postdoctoral studies in the Netherlands :

– Jérôme Gautier was hired as postdoctoral researcher at AMOLF, Amsterdam, in the group of, Erik Garnett, Nanoscale Solar Cells

– Kripa Joseph, after a break in India, will start her postdoc in a few weeks in Eindhoven University of Technology, in Bert Meijer’ group.

Both of them spent more than 4 years among us, as they started as master students and were highly appreciated for their dedication in their research projects, but also for their human qualities. No doubt that they will succeed in their new positions and we wish them all the best !

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Jérôme and Kripa after their phD defense (Photos Minghao Li)

After two years in the lab, our colleague Sudipta Saha left this week-end for a new postdoctoral position in the group of Pävi Törmä, in Aalto University, Finland. If he continues like this, next one will be on Svalbard islands… More seriously, Sudipta contributed efficiently to the projects he was involved in, in particular the tricky setup of a new Mueller experiment in the UV, and we will miss his competences, but also his constant good mood and his smile. Good luck to him !

It will soon be three weeks that we have the pleasure to welcome a new brasilian student in the lab, Arthur Fonseca. He is currently doing a phD at the Physics Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, under the supervision of Pr. Paulo Maia Neto. He is doing experimental and theoretical studies on vortex beams and light-matter interaction in optical tweezers. Arthur will stay 6 months among us, welcome to him !

Since the first of september, we have the pleasure to welcome a new postdoctoral researcher in the team, Dr Weijian Tao. Weijian is originated from Zheijiang Province in China, and spent all his life there till now. He got his phD degree from Zheijiang University in 2022. His research subject was focused on the excited state dynamics of emerging inorganic semiconductor materials with strong electron-phonon interactions, for example 2D lead halide perovskites and antimony selenides, to understand how electron-phonon interaction defines fundamental advantages or limitations in these kinds of materials. Welcome to him !

One week ago, Kuidong Wang went back to China after 4 years spent in the lab, as a postdoctoral researcher. He now got an associate professor position in Xi’an. We really appreciated his presence among us and his investment in the research project he took part to.

We wish him all the best for the future !

We welcome since the 1st of July Rahul Meena, phD in Université Libre de Bruxelles  under the supervision of Pr. Yves Geerts, in the context of the UHMob program. Rahul comes from Rajasthan in India and received his master degree from IISER Bhopal. He is currently working on synthesizing new organic semiconductors having high carrier mobility, that will be tested under strong coupling with conductivity measurements. He will stay 2 months in the lab, in office n°106.

Kalaivanan Nagarajan left our lab one week ago to go back in India where he will take a position of reader at the Department of Chemical Sciences of TIFR, Mumbai. He spent 5 years in the lab, during which he had time to build strong relationships with people here, to evolve as a scientist with a pure chemistry education to a much more physics one and to forge a family. His presence in the team was precious thanks to his energy and enthusiasm. No doubt that his new colleagues will benefit from this and we wish him all the best for the future !

With a bit of delay, we introduce you to our new Master 2 student, Antoine Tartar. He started his training in the lab in the beginning of February and he is currently working on setting up a new optical trap under vacuum with Rémi Goerlich and Luis Pires, under the supervision of Cyriaque Genet.