PhD Position in Experimental Quantum Physics

Introduction

Are you a highly-motivated student with excellent laboratory skills for performing state-of-the-art quantum physics experiments?

The strontium quantum gases group  is headed by Prof. Florian Schreck and is part of the Quantum Gases and Quantum Information (QG&QI) cluster at the Institute of Physics (IoP) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The main focus of the group is the exploitation of Sr quantum gases for novel precision measurement techniques and the study of many-body physics. We have one open PhD position within our Innovative Training Network (ITN ) MoSaiQC, which in this context are called early stage researchers (ESRs ). This ITN trains 14 ESRs in 10 organizations from industry and academia. MoSaiQC is EU funded (project no. 860579) and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action .

You will participate in network meetings across Europe, where you will learn about quantum technology from experts in the field and train essential skills, such as academic writing and outreach. You will participate in a summer school on clocks and organize a conference together with the other ESRs. You will spend half a year in the lab of a partner in either Copenhagen, Torun or Birmingham. You will participate in outreach events. During the public days of UvA you can present your experiment in talks and labtours or present physics demonstration experiments that you have developed and built. You are encouraged to join teams at UvA that prepare special events for minority groups, which encompass for example guiding pupils to create holograms.

The ESRs shall at the date of recruitment be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and have not been awarded a doctoral degree. They must not have resided or carried out their main activity (e.g. work, studies) in the Netherlands for more than 12 months in the three years immediately prior the recruitment date. Please take a look at the other open PhD positions on the Sr group website (www.strontiumBEC.com ) if you do not fulfil these eligibility criteria.

What are you going to do

ESR2 - Precision laser stabilization and locking 
The core of ESR2's project is to develop an ultrastable laser and use it for research. ERS2 will build an ultrastable, high-finesse cavity and lock a laser to it such that it has a linewidth well below 1 Hz. Light will be sent from this laser through phase-stabilized fiber links to the superradiant clock we develop within iqClock  and serve to characterize its precision. These characterizations will be used to identify precision limiting effects and to improve the clock. A further research opportunity is to use this laser for internal state control in our programmable quantum simulator. Another aspect of ESR2's work will be the development of a scalable and simple system to lock all lasers required to operate a superradiant clock.

These ESR positions will be embedded within the projects described on our group website .