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 write us 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
Our student projects aim at the design, simulation and characterization of integrated hybrid electro-optical setups that allow 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. Our student projects are designed to support our main research directions such that students contribute and experience real life research in a young and international team. Typical activities for curious and motivated students could be
- Investigation of different chip packaging options, ranging from fiber arrays to microfabricated optics.
- Simulation and characterization of metasurfaces to manipulate light fields for particle levitation.
- Simulation or/and fabrication of electrostatic Paul traps on chip.
- CAD design of optical setups.
- Design or/and building of designated printed circuit boards.
- Design or/and characterization of 3D printed microoptical elements.
- Experiment control and data acquisition with labview & python
Useful but not mandatory skills: CAD, physics simulations, optical setup assembly, data analysis, microfabrication, CAD, optical characterization and vacuum technology.
Contact: Dr. Nadine Meyer
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 tune the experimental parameters such as flow rate, lipid composition, and concentration to tailor the liposome population for different applications such as surface functionalisation or encapsulation of reagents.
Skills: Microfluidics design and fabrication, AutoCAD, fluid dynamics, nanoparticle characterisation techniques, downstream nanotechnology applications based on liposomes.
Contact: Dr. Jaime Ortega Arroyo
Discrete polarisation state CD spectrometer
You will develop a platform aimed at measuring CD spectra. For this you will design an optical setup that switches between two discrete polarisation states and synchronises the acquisition of spectra to each polarisation state. You will then apply this platform to characterise chirally active nanoparticles and their interaction with chiral molecules.
Skills: hardware-software interfacing, data acquisition, fpga, optical setup assembly
Contact: Dr. Jaime Ortega Arroyo
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: Dr. Jaime Ortega Arroyo
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.
Contact: Dr. Jaime Ortega Arroyo
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.
Contact: Dr. Jaime Ortega Arroyo
Machine learning based digital holographic microscopy
You will test and implement a machine learning based algorithm for the fast detection and tracking of microscopic particles.
To study the shape and speed of fluid flows in microscopic envirornments tracer particles are being used to indicate their movement. We use digital holographic microscopy to detect such particles in 3D. Current methods rely on the segmentation and individual projections of particles to get their correct focus position, a method that is robust but requires long compuation times. To speed up this process and potentially acquire real-time detection, deep learning based AI algorithms have shown immense potential for such tasks. Your task will be to test already existing models (e.g. YOLO, DeepTrack, LODESTAR, UNET) for the fast tracing of microfluidic flows. Existing programming skills with PYTHON are a requirement.
Skills: Machine learning based programming, particle tracking and holographic digital microscopy techniques, fluid dynamics.
Contact: Dr. Falko Schmidt
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: Dr. Falko Schmidt
Locomotion of miniature robots in complex environments
You will study the motion of miniature robots, hexbots nano, in various environments from simple Newtonian, to viscous and viscouelastic environments. The motion of agents, such as active particles, bacteria and cells, in complex environments is typically being studied on the microscale, requiring expensive equipment to provide suitable environments and making their movement visible. Toy robots on the macroscale, however, provide an easily accessible way of illustrating microscopic phenomena with the naked eye only. Using home-made arenas and changing the environments properties with household liquids could potentially demonstrate such effects of viscosity and viscoelasticity even in primary and secondary schools.
Your task will be to build an arena containing an complex environment using household equipment by tracing the motion of hexbots nano using a smartphone camera. You will learn how to track these robots and to analyze their motion using statistical methods. By changing the environments, you will demonstrate how the diffusion coefficient depends on viscosity and how memory can be build into robots through sensing of their environments.
Skills: Programming, optical systems analysis, fluid dynamics.
Contact: Dr. Falko Schmidt
Research projects in microscale heat control
Contact: Dr. Jose García Guirado