MD Samiul Islam Rahat
QUSTEC PhD Fellow
University of Strasbourg, France

MD Samiul Islam Rahat completed his BSc (Bachelor in Science) at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Dhaka. As he progressed through his bachelor’s, he became more and more interested in experimental physics. In the final year of his bachelor’s studies, he worked on a simulation study of two-dimensional photonic crystal structure design for his research project. He obtained the prestigious Dean’s award in 2016 and the Prime Minister Gold Medal award for outstanding results in 2017.

He decided to shift from engineering to physics and in 2018-19, he obtained the Quantum Science and Nanomaterials (QMat) graduate school fellowship at the University of Strasbourg to attend the Master in Physics (Condensed Matter and Nanophysics) program. During his master’s research thesis, he worked under the supervision of Francois Fras at the Department of Ultrafast Optics and Nanophotonics, Institute of Physics and Chemistry of Materials Strasbourg (IPCMS – CNRS). In the same year, their research project was selected as a part of the QUSTEC program (Quantum Science and Technologies at the European Campus). The QUSTEC program is part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Quantum Flagship project. He started his PhD as a QUSTEC fellow in February 2020 on “Coherent ultrafast spectroscopy and control of individual Qbits in van der Waals materials”. He is working with materials in which 2D layers are attached by weak van der Waals force (Hexagonal Boron Nitride). These materials host naturally occurring defects which are single photon sources (also called Quantum emitters). The main purpose of the project is to use non-linear properties of light to experimentally investigate the decoherence properties of these emitters and determine how these properties evolve along with a large temperature range. They are doing this by developing a Four wave mixing microscopy experimental setup with a femtosecond laser. This can lead to the revelation of the potential of these emitters to be used as qbits in quantum information systems (quantum processor, quantum memory, quantum sensors). Their plan is to control the coherent superposition state of these emitters to demonstrate their applicability as qbits at room temperature. They are also trying to engineer these emitters in terms of position and spectral behavior as opposed to their natural random occurrence and properties in van der Waals materials.