Rahul Banerjee

I am currently and in the future, will be exploring light-matter coupling (interactions), plasmonics and non-linear optics as part of my PhD research at Professor Maiken Mikkelsen's group. My research is geared towards the deterministic placement of CdSe/ZnS (core/shell) quantum dots within plasmonic MIM (metal insulator metal) cavities to explore phenomena such as weak and strong coupling alongside single emitters. This has applications in quantum information processing, single photon sources and nanophotonics.

As the first year representative, I helped with organizing and leading sessions of optics journal clubs. Furthermore, I helped arrange a large scale outreach event known as Lasers, Lenses and Light (LLL) Day 2024 where we set up optics demonstrations (demos) and activities to create greater interest in optics in middle school students.

I spent time as a hardware engineering summer intern at Carallon. I conducted a variety of tasks allowing me to work through the entire process of building hardware with the aim of building a PCB that would be used to test one of the products. This presented a challenge because I had to familiarise myself with a new PCB design software known as Cadstar within a week or two which I achieved by adapting and using my prior knowledge of KiCAD and Altium. The first stage involved working on the schematic including choosing components which is particularly tricky given the component shortage crisis. I laid out the PCB based on return paths, noise filtering and slew control. Following this, I had the unique experience of manufacturing the PCB using a pick and place machine and solder oven. I learnt XJTAG which can be applied to finding faults in BGA grids and wrote BSDL. A serial interface (Teraterm) was used to surf the Linux boot-up bitstream and this was searched for a specific ethernet error by updating the firmware of the product.

In this project, I worked on assembling a reactor furnace system that would be used for creating Fe nanoparticles. I collaborated with a PhD student to analyse log-normal particle size distributions (PSDs) and the parameters which affect these. Following this, I planned and helped develop a H2 rig. I had to purchase equipment on behalf of the University and get quotes for mass flow controllers (MFCs) and other equipment. While the original rig mentioned above involved air, I was responsible for setting up the H2 rig which I did to the best of my ability during COVID times. My work on this project has since been used as research preparation for an MEng research graduate, an accomplishment that I am proud of. To collect nanoparticles ranging in size from 4-8 nm, I made of use of an electrostatic precipitator where these nanoparticles would then be used to make 1-2 nm single walled CNTs. Since this collection process can be improved upon, I designed a thermophoretic precipitator on COMSOL Multiphysics, a simulation platform. While this was an early design that was used to get intuition about different geometries, it was later developed by the PhD student.

This was a virtual internship done in the summer of 2020. I worked as part of the Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning (AI-ML) team at the company where I helped develop a machine learning algorithm in order to predict the natural language complexity of an input text based on evaluation sub-parameters.

I spent some time learning about marketing including using Flurry and finding trends in Excel. I also, learnt how to use the programming language Swift.

PhD Dissertation and Defense: Preliminary Exam: Courses: https://ece.duke.edu/masters/courses Advanced Optics, Thin Films for Emerging Applications (in Quantum Computing and Artificial Intelligence), Introduction to Solid State Physics, Waves in Matter, Digital Integrated Chips, Nanomaterials Technology Laboratory, Statistical Optics, Quantum Optics and Electronics TA: Introduction to Microelectronic Devices

Year 4 modules http://teaching.eng.cam.ac.uk/node/3003 Quantum and Nanotechnologies, Embedded Systems for the IoT, Project Management, Radio Frequency Electronics, Optical Fibre Communications, Power Microelectronics, Electronic Sensors and Instrumentation, Photonics Systems (including holograms) Year 3 http://teaching.eng.cam.ac.uk/node/2979 Semiconductor engineering, Photonic technology, Integrated digital electronics, Radio frequency electronics, Operations management for engineers, Switch mode electronics, Electric drive systems, Signals and systems, Systems and control, Information theory and coding Year 1 and 2 modules Electrical Engineering, Information Engineering, Thermofluid Mechanics, Materials, Mathematical Methods, Mechanics, Structures

4 A-Levels + EPQ: Mathematics - A*, Further Mathematics - A*, Physics - A*, Chemistry - A*, EPQ - A (Subject/Research question of EPQ: Can graphene based batteries replace lithium-ion based batteries in the future?) 12 GCSEs: English Language - 7, English Literature - 9, Mathematics - 9, Further Mathematics - A^ (A* Distinction)), French A, and 7 other subjects - A* (Geography, Business Studies, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Computing, Religious Education)