Student Projects
We offer semester projects, Bachelor and Master theses for highly motivated master students. You will get close supervision through PhDs and Postdocs, but you also be expected to work independently.
In your project, you will get into contact with a multitude of technologies like optics, lasers, microfabrication, microfluidics, data evaluation and vacuum technology. While any previous experience is beneficial, the skills listed on each project are not strict requirements; they will be acquired by you during your work.
Do not hesitate to or pass by the lab/office to get more information on the different topics available.
Research projects in levitated optomechanics
Fully integrated on-chip platforms for Levitodynamics
Your project aims at the design and characterization of an optical setup that allows for the robust and repeatable interfacing of arbitrary on-chip experimental platforms and macroscopic optics, enabling a manifold of experiments, such as quantum experiments with optical nanocavities and levitated nanoparticles without moving parts. You will investigate different packaging options, ranging from fiber arrays to microfabricated optics.
Skills: CAD, physical simulations, optical setup assembly, data analysis.
Contact:
Micro-optics for particle trapping in optical tweezers
Your project aims to design and characterize 3D printed microoptical elements, towards compact multipurpose optics for levitation optomechanics. You will characterize the opticalproperties of microfabricated lenses of different designs, under both ambient or vacuum conditions.
Skills: Microfabrication, CAD, optical characterization and vacuum technology.
Contact:
Event cameras used to detect multiple levitated nanoparticles
Your project aims at the development of an alternative detection mechanism for nano- and micro-sized particles based on particle
tracking with event cameras. These dynamic vision sensors respond to local changes, instead of capturing entire images. Each pixel operates independently, detecting local changes as they occur, making them faster than standard cameras. You will study and characterize this new technology for particle detection. Finally, you will benchmark it against standard detection technologies.
Skills: Programming, data acquisition, data processing, optical characterization.
Contact:
Research projects in bionanophotonics
Microfluidics-based generation of liposomes
You will design and make a microfluidics-based platform that can rapidly and cost-effectively prepare tuneable size and composition of a group of synthetic nanoparticles known as liposomes – a key building block for many nanotechnology applications. You will specifically characterise how different experimental parameters such as flow rate, lipid composition, and concentration affect the size and uniformity of the liposome produced.
Skills: Microfluidics design and fabrication, AutoCAD, fluid dynamics, nanoparticle characterisation techniques, downstream nanotechnology applications based on liposomes.
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Digital stabilisation of imaging systems against mechanical vibrations and drifts
You will develop a computational pipeline that will extract minute mechanical drifts and vibrations from timelapse images, which will then be used to generate a digitally stabilised movie. You will then apply this pipeline to multiple problems ranging from biosensing to designing PID stabilised imaging systems.
Skills: Computer vision and image processing, Python programming, digital holography, noise analysis.
Contact:
High content screening microfluidic platform
You will design and develop a simple and robust platform composed of a series of microfluidic modules that together enable fast yet large parameter space screening with minimal sample volume. The platform you design will form the basis of multiple downstream label-free biosensing experiments.
Skills: Microfluidics design and fabrication, AutoCAD, fluid dynamics, label-free biosensing.
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Developing a smart microscope with FPGA microcontrollers
You will develop a microcontroller-driven hardware software interface based on FPGAs to communicate with multiple devices that make part of a microscope system ranging from cameras, motorised stages, illumination sources and valve controllers. Your microcontroller system will form the basis for the automation of multiple microscope platforms, and to turn them into smart platforms that can adapt to the type of feedback from the input sample.
Skills: FPGA, Verilog, hardware/software interfacing, instrument synchronisation.
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Machine learning based digital holographic microscopy
You will implement machine learning based algorithms into existing workflows for digital holographic microscopy. This will facilitate a faster and more robust analysis of 3D fluid flows within microscopic environments. This work is part of a project that works on light activated fluidics. By illuminating small areas under focused light beams, heat is locally generated, which induces rapid fluid flows. By controlling the spatial arrangement of those beams, fluid motion can be precisely controlled, which will lay the foundation for a novel 3D manipulation of biological materials that require no forces or fluid pumps.
Skills: Machine learning based programming, particle tracking and holographic digital microscopy techniques, fluid dynamics.
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Light sculpting for thermal landscape engineering
You will develop and implement fast algorithms for spatial light modulation (SLM) of a high power laser beam. SLM allows to change the shape of light into any type of from such as splitting it into several separate components pr even introduce rotational components within ordinary Gaussian beams. Such powerful tool provides countless applications within optical light modulation from small particles, biological materials or even fluid flows. In this project, designing specific light structures helps us create more diverse temperature landscapes through the absorption of light on plasmonic nanostructures and thus steer fluid flows in specific directions which will lay the foundation for a novel 3D manipulation of biological materials that require no forces or fluid pumps.
Skills: Programming, optical systems analysis, fluid dynamics.
Contact:
Research projects in microscale heat control
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