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Angelo Frangeskou

Please note that this page is no longer being maintained. My current webpage can be found here.

Past Research

I recently completed my PhD at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Gavin Morley in the EPR research group, on single electron spins in optically levitated nanodiamonds. A link to my postdoctoral research on diamond magnetometry will be available soon.

Nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV centers) in diamond have been shown to be excellent candidates as quantum bits (qubits), with long coherence lifetimes exceeding milliseconds at room temperature; the NV center is ideal for this purpose becuase it has a single electron spin that can be manipulated using a magnetic resonance technique known as electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), where microwaves are used to resonantly excite electron spins in magnetic fields. One of the key advantages of the NV centre is that the spin state can then be read out optically, facilitating the control of a single electron spin.

Energy level diagram of the NV centre.

For this project, an optical dipole trap was constructed to levitated nanodiamonds in vacuum. If we are able to control the state of a single electron spin inside the nanodiamond, it would be possible to test various phenomena in quantum mechanics. For example, it could be possible to demonstrate the spatial superposition of a mesoscopic object (the nanodiamonds are 100 nm in diameter), potentially revealing new information about the crossover of classical and quantum physics.

You can see my publications here, and read more about the project here.

Landscape

Past:

2012-2013: Msc, Physics by Research, Royal Holloway, Uni. of London/ National Physical Laboratory

Studied quantum dot devices as detectors and sources of THz radiation

2009-2012: BSc, Physics at Royal Holloway, Uni. of London

My final year project was the observation of quantum interference effects in mesoscopic rings, like the Aharonov-Bohm effect