PhD student Jesse Slim received the qualification with honor (cum laude) for his PhD defense at Eindhoven University of Technology on March 9th. Slim did his doctoral research in the Photonic Forces group of his promotor Ewold Verhagen.
In his thesis ‘Orchestrating nanomechanical motion with light’, Slim describes how he managed to use carefully configured laser light to detect and control the motion of nanomechanical resonators. In particular, he used the light as a medium to connect multiple mechanical resonators into small, highly tunable networks. These networks can be seen as small instances of ‘metamaterials’, with resonators as building blocks and optically controlled couplings. The flexibility of the optical driving allows to break fundamental symmetries such as time-reversal symmetry and the conservation of energy, and endows the nanomechanical networks with unusual properties and responses.
In addition to writing a thesis of outstanding quality, Slim also made an impression on all those present at the defense showing his extensive knowledge on how to orchestrate motion with light.
