Bachelor – Thesis

High-efficiency hydrogen dissociator

  • Task: Systematic study and optimization of control parameters and stability of hydrogen dissociation in a microwave discharge tube.
  • Field of study: vacuum technology, radiofrequency electronics, plasma physics, detector physics
  • Contact: Merten Heppener (meheppen[a]uni-mainz.de) or Hendrik Schürg (h.schuerg[a]uni-mainz.de)

Data Acquisition/Slow control System

  • Task: Find or implement a suitable data acquisition system for interfacing to various sensors and automatically obtaining measurement data.
  • Field of study: programming, device interfaces, server architecture
  • Contact: Merten Heppener (meheppen[a]uni-mainz.de)

Differential pumping setup for laser mirrors in vacuum

  • Task: At 243 nm, mirror coatings degrade under incident light in vacuum environments. To prevent this, oxygen is flushed over the mirrors at around 10 mbar. This (higher) pressure region has to be separated from the low pressure spectroscopy chamber while still allowing the laser to traverse. For this, a differential pumping system has to be designed and built.
  • Fields of study: vacuum techniques, mirror coatings
  • Contact: Merten Heppener (meheppen[a]uni-mainz.de)

Isolation of an optical reference cavity system

  • Task: Based on characterization of the current (unshielded) optical reference system for laser frequency stabilization, design and construct a portable temperature-stabilized isolation box.
  • Field of study: laser frequency stabilization, mechanical engineering, simulation
  • Contact: Hendrik Schürg (h.schuerg[a]uni-mainz.de)

Radiation and population escape factors in a cylindrical discharge tube

  • Task: Apply the escape factor method to model reabsorption of photons in our hydrogen discharge. This process modifies the population distribution of excited states and the intensity of emission lines observed in optical emission spectroscopy.
  • Field of study: atom-light interaction, plasma physics
  • Contact: Hendrik Schürg (h.schuerg[a]uni-mainz.de)

Polarisation Switching unit Lithium Spectroscopy

  • Task: For the spectroscopy of a cold Lithium beam emitted by a 2D MOT, we need to be able to quickly switch the Polarisation of our spectroscopy beam. 
  • Field of study: lasers, optics, electronics, acousto-optics
  • Contact: Gregor Schwendler (grschwen[a]uni-mainz.de) and Hannah Jost  (hjost@uni-mainz.de)

Setup of a beat-offset-lock scheme to stabilize a laser to a reference 

  • Task: Build an external cavity diode laser (ECDL) and stabilize it to another laser by using a beat-offset-locking scheme.
  • Field of study: lasers, optics, electronics
  • Contact: Gregor Schwendler (grschwen[a]uni-mainz.de) and Hannah Jost  (hjost@uni-mainz.de)
Hydrogen microwave discharge

If you have an own idea for a project in mind that you would like to do in our group, please feel free to contact us!