Team

Antonius Armanious, Oberassistent,

Antonius has a broad scientific experience spanning engineering, physical chemistry, environmental virology, surface sciences, and biological physics. He develops innovative tools to probe the (sub-)nanoscale world. In the Degen group, he uses different approaches to improve the sensitivity of nanomechanical resonators, bringing them closer to quantum-limited sensitivity.

Lorenzo Bechelli, PhD Student, 

Lorenzo holds a Bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Bologna and a Master's degree in Quantum Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). After completing his Master's thesis on Spinmechanics at DTU, he joined the Degen group for his PhD in September 2023 to work with ensembles of NV centers.

Geena Benga, PhD Student, 

Geena holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Physics from ETH Zurich. For her Master's thesis, she worked as a visiting assistant in research at Yale University's Wright Lab, searching for dark matter with levitated nanosphere sensors. She joined the Degen group in November 2023 to work on nuclear spin sensing and to test mass sensing techniques with membrane-​based scanning force microscopy. She loves cats, lifting weights and cooking pasta.

Chaoxin Ding, PhD Student, 

Chaoxin joined the Degen group as a PhD student in May 2022, focusing on quantum imaging of nanoscale electronic transport with NV centers. Previously, he participated in a Quantech workshop jointly with the Degen group and QZabre within the ETH Master's program in Quantum Engineering. As one of the first graduating quantum engineers, he completed his Master's thesis in the Quantum Photonics Group in April 2022.  

Vincent Dumont, Postdoc,

Vincent joined the nanomechanics team in November 2022 as a postdoctoral researcher to concentrate on magnetic force resonance microscopy and parametric oscillators. He obtained a Bachelor's (2015) degree in Physics from the University of Montreal, and a Master's (2017) and PhD (2022) degrees in Physics from McGill University, both under the supervision of Jack Sankey in the field of optomechanics.

Farnaz Ebrahimi, PhD student, 

Farnaz joined the group in April 2023 after her Master's studies in Materials Science. During her PhD work, which she mainly performs at CSEM Neuchâtel in the team of Amir Ghadimi, she aims to develop a new generation of ultrahigh-sensitive miniaturized opto-mechanical accelerometers. Her main focus is on simulation and modeling of opto-mechanical systems as well as micro-fabrication.

Sebastián Guerrero Soriano, PhD Student

Sebastián holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Master's degree in Physics from ETH Zurich. After completing his Master’s thesis project on micromechanical resonators in September 2021, he decided to stay in the Degen group and joined the Diamond Lab for his PhD. His research focuses on cryogenic quantum sensing and its applications to multiferroic materials.

Bhavesh Kharbanda, PhD Student, 

Bhavesh joined the group as a MSc student to learn how NV centres 'relax' after his studies at KIT & IIT Madras. In April 2022, he moved to (literally) very cool optomechanics for his PhD, working with string resonators, photonic cavities and milli-Kelvin temperatures. With his prior quest in the fields of engineering physics and optics, he is onto getting magnetic spins perform some back flips.

Kuno Knapp, PhD Student, 

Kuno received both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Physics from ETH Zurich. After having studied the relaxation mechanisms of niobium and tantalum transmon qubits for his Master's thesis, Kuno joined the Degen group in September 2023 to work on the millikelvin scanning NV setup, looking to harness the potential of NV magnetometry in the sub-kelvin regime.

Gabriel Margiani, PhD Student, 

Gabriel received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Physics from ETH Zurich. For his Master's thesis, he joined the Spin Physics group in 2021 focusing on phase-state switching in single and coupled pairs of parametric micro-mechanical oscillators. He rejoined the Degen group for his PhD in January 2022, working on coupled nonlinear parametric oscillators.

Annika Mechnich, PhD Student, 

Annika studied Physics at the University of Konstanz. During her studies, she went to the Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) as an exchange student and to the University of Cambridge (UK) for her Master's thesis, where she started working on scanning diamond quantum magnetometry, which she will continue to do for her PhD in the Degen group as from November 2023. Learning from the NV center, she plays Lacrosse (LAX) to reLAX.

Nicholas Meinhardt, PhD Student, 

Nicholas joined the group in March 2022 as a PhD student focusing on time-resolved scanning NV magnetometry of dynamic fields in magnetic racetrack devices. Prior to that, he already worked on a collaborative project of QZabre and the Degen group. He obtained a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Physics from ETH Zurich and completed his Master's thesis at the interface between quantum algorithms and machine learning at TNO in The Hague.

Luis Martins Mestre, PhD Student,

Luis joined the group in September 2023 to work on parametric string resonators. For his Master's at The University of Manchester (UK), he built an Earth's field NMR device. He then worked at an R&D technical consultancy in Cambridge (UK), where he developed various proof-of-principle prototypes in the lab for products in the medical and consumer sectors. After two years of work, he decided to go back into academia for a PhD.

Uros Ognjanovic, PhD Student, 

Uros holds Bachelor's degrees in Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics from TU Delft. He obtained his Master's degree in Quantum Engineering at ETH Zurich, with a Master's thesis on radiation-induced quasiparticles in Niobium and seedless-Tantalum qubits. He joined the Degen group in November 2023 as a PhD student, focusing on NV magnetometry in the milli-Kelvin regime.

Laura van Schie, PhD Student,

Laura joined the group in September 2021 following her Master's studies at Durham University. Her research will span two groups (Gambardella group and Degen group), combining quantum sensing using diamond NV centres with analysis of dynamic fields in magnetic racetracks. She is hoping that joining the Spin Physics group will help her master her turns on the basketball court.

Diego Visani, PhD Student, 

After his Master's studies in Physics at EPFL, Diego worked in an emerging spin-off, producing frequency-agile narrow linewidth lasers targeting the LiDAR industry. He joined the Degen group in April 2022 to work on membrane-based magnetic resonance force microscopy, aiming at improving the experimental setup and measuring spins at milli-Kelvin temperatures, hoping to beat the current records in spin sensitivity and spatial resolution.

Laura Völker, PhD Student, 

Laura holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Chemistry from ETH Zurich and has a background in NMR spectroscopy of inorganic materials and surface organometallic chemistry. She joined the Degen group in January 2022 as a PhD student to study chirality-induced spin selectivity using nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond.