Two QEOD Thesis Prizes for Fundamental Aspects

Since 2007, the Quantum Electronics and Optics division (QEOD) of the European Physical Society (EPS) awards up to four Thesis prizes around the CLEO Europe Conference to reward excellence in PhD research and scientific communication in the area of quantum electronics and optics. The prizes take into account related PhD thesis work submitted in the two years prior to the conference. These Prizes are awarded for fundamental and applied aspects.

Today in the special Plenary and Awards Ceremony during CLEO Europe-EQEC, two QEOD Thesis prizes for fundamental aspects were awarded to members of the ICFO Research Group led by ICREA Prof Dr Javier Garcia de Abajo.

Dr Renwen Yu defended his thesis entitled “Toward Next-Generation Nanophotonic Devices” at ICFO in 2019. He has been awarded the QEOD Thesis Prize for fundamental studies of light-matter interactions in nanosystems based on graphene, along with the exploration of applications in photodetection, light modulation, and optical sensing. Renwen was also awarded the ICFO PhD Thesis award in 2020 for his creative and ambitious research. He is currently a postdoctoral associate at Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, where his research interests lie at nanophotonics in the thermodynamical limit.

Dr P. André D. Gonçalves was also awarded the 2021 EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for fundamental aspects for fundamental contributions to nanoscale electrodynamics and light–matter interactions with the incorporation of quantum mechanical effects in metal nanostructures and two-dimensional nanophotonics. André defended his thesis at Technical University of Denmark in 2019 and he is currently working as a postdoctoral research at ICFO, where his research interests encompass several areas of nanophotonics and condensed-matter physics, with focus on the nanoscale regime interfacing quantum and classical physics.

Congratulations Renwen and André for this honor.