EPFL PhD student wins EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize
© 2021 EPFL
Maxim Karpov, who received his PhD from EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences, has been awarded one of the two 2021 Thesis Prizes for applied aspects from the Quantum Electronics and Optics division (QEOD) of the European Physical Society (EPS) for his work on microresonator-based optical frequency combs.
The prestigious EPS-QEOD Prizes and Awards are given on odd-numbered years to honor the work of scientists in the field of physics.
This year, one of the two EPS-QEOD Thesis Prize for applied aspects is awarded to Dr Maxim Karpov, who received his PhD from EPFL in 2020. Dr Karpov’s research, carried out in the lab of Professor Tobias J. Kippenberg at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences, explored the dynamics of dissipative Kerr solitons in optical microresonators and demonstrated their performance in real-world applications. Karpov is currently working at the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM) in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
The Prize was presented during a special Plenary and Awards Ceremony of the CLEO®/Europe-EQEC 2021.
Maxim Karpov obtained his Master in Physics and Applied Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in 2014, and received his Doctorate in Physics from EPFL in 2020. His research interests lie at the intersection of nonlinear physics, microresonator-based photonic systems, and their emerging applications. During his doctorate Dr Karpov worked on microresonator-based optical frequency combs (microcombs), and experimentally discovered several soliton phenomena in microresonators including Raman self-frequency shift, soliton switching, and the formation of perfect soliton crystals. Dr Karpov also contributed to many first demonstrations of new applications of microcombs in coherent optical communications, ultrafast distance measurements (LiDAR), and optical computing of convolution neural networks. He is now a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the Swiss Centre of Electronics and Microtechnology.