Category Archives: People

Giannis Drougakis

Alumnus Postdoc
10/2021 – 7/2024 Postdoc on BEC 1 and Space Optics
11/2016 – 10/2021 PhD Student on BEC 1 and OBST
03/2015 – 10/2016 Master Student on the ESA-OBST project

Giannis joined the Cretan Matter Waves group in March 2015 to work on the ESA-OBST project. He holds a diploma in electrical and computer engineering (2012) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He received his master’s degree from the inter-institutional graduate program “Vision and Optics”, of the University of Crete finishing his master thesis entitled “Vibrational and angular stability of optical systems for space applications” in December 2015. He continued for his PhD working on BEC 1 and OBST, graduating in October 2021. He is now a postdoc on BEC 1 and OBST. He is going to be the head of telecommunications at the airport in Heraklion and will be in charge of this topic at the new airport in Kastelli

Kostas Poulios

day11/2014 – 07/2017 : postdoc on BEC 1 and Space Optics

Kostas got his Bachelor’s Degree in Physics at the Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he majored on Solid State Physics and Optics.

He then started his PhD in 2009 at the Centre for Quantum Photonics, University of Bristol, under the supervision of Prof. Jeremy O’Brien, where he did experimental research on integrated quantum photonics for quantum information and quantum computation science. His main focus was on implementation of multi-photon integrated quantum walks, with dissertation titled: Integrated Photonic Continuous-Time Quantum Walks.

He then did a short post-doc in 2014 still with Prof. Jeremy O’Brien at the Centre for Quantum Photonics, working in a collaboration with Prof. Axel Kuhn’s Atom-Photon Connection group at Oxford University. He was also a visiting post-doctoral research assistant (early 2015) at the Atom-Photon Connection group, Oxford University. The scope of the collaboration was to use a deterministic single photon source (single Rb87 atoms in a cavity) to perform quantum logic experiments on integrated photonic devices.

In November 2014 he joined the Cretan Matter-Waves / Bose-Einstein Condensation group, I.E.S.L., FO.R.T.H. in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, where he is since working as a post-doctoral researcher. His main project is the implementation of a fully-guided, ring-shaped, Sagnac-type atom-interferometer using time-averaged adiabatic potentials (TAAPs) and Rb87 Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs).

In summer 2017, Kostas joined the cold atoms group of Thomas Fernholz at Nottingham University.

Panagiotis Christodoulou

01/2016 – 08/2016 Research Assistant
(01/2015 – 01/2016 Military Service)
01/2014 – 07/2014 Master Thesis

Postdoc

Panagiotis is now doing a PostDoc in the group of Tilman Esslinger at the ETH in Zurich.

PhD

Panagiotis has done his PhD thesis in the group of Professor Zoran Hadzibabic at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University, where he studied bosons in a two-dimensional homogeneous traps, resulting in three Nature papers.

Master

Panagiotis fulfilled his Master at Microsystems and Nanostructures offered by the National Technical University of Athens in conjunction with the National Center for Scientific Research ‘Dimokritos‘ with a Master thesis entitled ‘Quantifying a cold thermal cloud as a resource for quantum degeneracy in a Ioffe-Pritchard trap’ in the Cretan Matter Waves group.

Undergraduate Studies

Panagiotis studied School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens. He chose the field of Electronics as a specialization and obtained his degree with a diploma thesis in the field of Many-Body Physics (theory), entitled ‘Quantum states of order at LAO/STO and LTO/STO interfaces’

Sofia Botsi

06/2013-12/2013 undergraduate student 

Sofia is an undergraduate student at the Physics Departement of the University of Crete.

She then went to Klaasjan van Druten’s laboratory at the University of Amsterdam, where she constructed a diode laser system for the generation of Rydberg atoms on a chip.

Sofia Botsi is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Optical and Quantum Systems Engineering group performing experimental and theoretical work in support of the Cold Atom Lab instrument in orbit. Her recent paper on multi species BEC on the space station was published in Nature.

Benjamin Sherlock

04/2012-05/2013 Postdoc on BEC 1

Before joining us at the Cretan Matter-Waves Ben his D.Phil. at Oxford University and before this M.Sci. at Hatfield College, University of Durham. Ben is one of the pioneers of Time-Averaged-Adiabatic Potentials with the first demonstration of the double TAAP and the TAAP ring.  Ben is now a Lecturer in Translational Biophotonics at the University of Exeter, England, United Kingdom.

Dimitrios Papazoglou

06/2010 – today Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete

Dimitris is involved in everything optical in the BEC group.

Scientific interests

  1. Nonlinear interactions of ultra-short laser pulses with transparent media
  2. Exotic optical waves and light bullets
  3. Wavefront sensing and manipulation
  4. Laser microfabrication (in bulk structuring of dielectrics, micro-mechanics,
    diffractive surface structures).
  5. Dynamic holography, photorefractive materials

Martins Bruvelis

07/2010 to 09/2010 Internship on Crete

Martins was visiting us the from University of Latvia to work on the BEC1 experiment, when he did some excellent work manly on the computer control of the experiment.

After doing his a Ph.D. in University of Latvia and continuing research at the Laser Centre of University of Latvia, he is now a Senior Information Technology Specialist at the CEMSE – Computer, Electrical And Mathematical Sciences And Engineering Division of KAUST.

 01/2014 to 01/2018 PhD student at the Laser Centre of University of Latvia.
10/2010 to 10/2014 Research Assistant  at the Laser Centre of University of Latvia.
07/2010 to 09/2010 Internship on Crete
01/2007 to 09/2010 Undergraduate Studies

Michael Morrissey

 09/2009 – 08/2011 Postdoc on BEC2

Before coming to Crete I graduated from Cork Insitutute of Technology (CIT) with a B.Sc. in “Applied Physics and Instrumentation” in 2004. As part of completeing the B.Sc. a five month project was undertaken. This project, entitled “Quality Surveillance Algorithms for Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifiers”, was carried out in the Information and Communication Network (ICN) Department at Siemens AG research facility in Munich. The project entailed research into how the aging of components with the EDFA can be monitored using algorithms. From a mathematical model, the key parameters needed to detect the degradation/aging of the EDFA were determined. In addition to theoretical work, optical experiments were carried out to determine a technique to measure the required parapeters. A procedure was developed to test the feasibility and accuracy of the EDFA model.

From my experience in Siemens AG, I developed an interest in optics and decided to pursue this interest. I started my PhD in September 2004 with the Quantum Optics Group under the supervision of Dr. Síle Nic Chormaic, in the area of “Control of cold rubidium atoms“.

I built the first cold atom experiment in South-Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and then moved on to work at Extreme Light Infrastructure in Prague