Polaritonics

An international research activity of state-of-the-art experimental laboratories
and theoretical modelling

Our team consists of international researchers with state-of-the-art experimental laboratories and theoretical modelling.

Principal investigator

Prof Pavlos Lagoudakis is the Head of the Hybrid Photonics Laboratories. His research spans the fields of photonics, strong light-matter coupling, semiconductor and condensed matter physics. EMAIL, Link to CV, twitter.

Senior scientists

Dr Mael Brossard is the Deputy Director for Operations at the Hybrid Photonics Laboratories at Skoltech. He completed his PhD in the field of Hybrid Photonics at the University of Southampton and in 2015 he moved to Skoltech, where he assumed the responsibility of managing the infrastructure and build-up of the Hybrid Photonics Laboratories. He contributes to the research of hybrid LED and PVs through co-supervision of interns, master and PhD students.   

Dr Denis Sanikov is Deputy Director for Engineering  of the Hybrid Photonics Laboratories at Skoltech. He is currently working on polariton lattices in organic microcavities towards room temperature polariton simulators in collaboration with IBM and the University of Sheffield.

Dr. Sergey Alyatkin is Assistant Professor and Deputy Head for Advanced Spectroscopy at Skoltech. He joined the polaritonics team to investigate the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in extended polariton lattices at Skoltech. 

Dr Tamsin Cookson is a Research scientist  at Skoltech since 2021. She completed her PhD on polariton condensation in novel organic materials and polariton graphs for polariton simulators at the University of Southampton.

Dr Giacomo Piana is an Engineer at Skoltech since 2022. He defended his PhD in 2019 at the Southampton University.

Dr Philip Grigoryev is a Research Scientist at Skoltech since 2023, where he is currently studying the effect of magnetic field on polariton condensate lattices.

Junior scientists

Stepan Baryshev is a Junior Researcher at Skoltech. He has completed his PhD on inorganics polaritonics under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis at Skoltech in 2022. He currently works on correlation measurements of polariton condensates.

Anton Putintsev is a Junior Researcher at Skoltech under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis. He has completed his PhD at the same lab in 2022.

Ivan Gnusov is a Reserch Engineer at Skoltech. He had defended his PhD at Skoltech in 2023 on the investigation of inorganic spinor polariton condensate properties, under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis.

Kirill Sitnik is a Junior Researcher at Skoltech. He is currently pursuing his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis. He earlier completed his research internship on developing and characterising a setup for time-resolved photoluminescence excitation.

PhD students

Igor Smirnov is a 2-nd year PhD student. He received a Master's degree from Skoltech in 2022, and a Bachelor's degree from Alferov University in 2016. He is now investigating system of exciton-polariton condensates with out-of-cavity optical feedback using experimental and numerical approaches under the supervision of Prof. Lagousakis.

Ivan Krasionov is a 1st year PhD student at Skoltech. He obtained his Master's degree from Skoltech in 2023, and Bachelor's degree from Novosibirsk State University. Ivan conducts theoretical investigation of 2-dimensional exciton-polariton system by performing numerical simulations.

Mikhail Misko is a 1-st year PhD student at Skoltech. He got his bachelor's degree at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and his master's degree in the field of polariton dynamics in organic microcavities at Skoltech, under the supervision of Dr. Zasedatelev and Prof. Lagoudakis.

Master students

Maxim Kolker is an MSc-2 student. He graduated from Novosibirsk State Technical University, where he worked on parametric oscillator complexes. He is now working on lateral logic gates under the supervision of Prof. Lagousakis and Dr. Sannikov.

Natalia Starkova is a MSc-1 student. She has graduated from Moscow state university, and now is studying KPZ universality in driven-dissipative exciton polariton condensates under the supervision of Prof. Lagousakis .

Andrei Bulavin is a MSc-1 student at Skoltech. He has graduated from Bauman Moscow State Technical University. Currently, Andrey is doing time-delay coherent measurements in polaritonic condensates under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis.

Administration

Dr Ekaterina Grayfer is a Manager for Academic Assistance at Skoltech.

Alumni

Dr. Dmitriy Dovzhenko is a Research Fellow at the Hybrid Photonics Laboratory at the University of Southampton. He is currently working on strong light-matter coupling in a tuneable open microcavity system.

Wang Yuan has defended his PhD  at Southampton in March 2023,  working on the simulation of the quantum system on graphics processing units, under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis.

Stella Harrison completed her PhD at the University of Southampton under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis, developing machine learning algorithms for optimising and automising the generation of polariton graphs. 

Dr Anton Zasedatelev was investigating the potential of polariton amplifiers at ambient conditions as ultrafast optical modulators in collaboration with IBM at Skoltech. 

Dr. Krzysztof Sawicki is a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. He is investigating the quantum speed-up of polariton simulators in realising the ground state of the XY Hamiltonian.

Denis Aristov is a PhD student at University of Southampton, where he moved after completing his MSc in Skoltech. He is involved in study of polariton condensate interaction with pump-induced barriers, under the supervision of Dr. Sigurdsoon and Prof. Lagoudakis.

Julian Toepfer did his Diploma on developing new methods for controlling the interactions between polariton condensates and investigating the formation of giant vortices at the University of Southampton and at Skoltech. He is currently pursuing a PhD following his master thesis in Southampton, under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis

Jatin Kumar was a Masters student at Skoltech. He got his bachelor degree from the National Institute of Technology Patna, India. He worked on fabrications and modelling of 2-D materials, under the supervision of Prof. Mailis.

Dr Giannis Chatzopoulos is a former research scientist at the University of Southampton (2019-2020), where he developed techniques for phase retrieval utilising polariton lattices at the University of Southampton. He is currently Higher Research Scientist in the Dimensional Metrology group at the National Physical Laboratory (UK).

After doing his bachelors the University of Southampton, Alessandro Genuardi joined Skoltech as a Masters student. He was investigating the exotic properties of a lattice of spinor exciton-polariton condensates, under the supervision of Prof. Pavlos Lagoudakis and Dr. Helgi Sigurdsson.

Dr Dmitry Mikulik is a former researcher at Skoltech (2018-2019), where he investigated the optical properties of novel organic/inorganic semiconductors in search for new materials for room temperature. He is currently a Senior Engineer at Micron Technology in Singapore.

Vladislava Bulgakova is a former research intern at Skoltech (2018-2019), where she worked on developing a fully automated time-resolved photo-luminescence emission (PLE) setup. She's currently doing a PhD at the Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Anton Baranikov is a former PhD  student at Skoltech, where he worked on organic polariton condensates in collaboration with IBM. After his graduation in 2018, he went on to become an Optical technologies specialist at A*STAR in Singapore.

Timur Ermatov  is a former PhD student and research intern at Skoltech (2016-2018), where he assisted in the development and maintenance of the simulator's components at Skoltech.  He's currently doing a PhD at Skoltech under the supervision of Prof. Gorin.

Dr Matteo Silva completed his PhD in 2017 on the experimental realisation of polariton simulators and currently investigates frustration in extended polariton lattices; here enjoying a glass of prosecco for defending his thesis in record time (less than 3 years).  He is now working as a systems engineer for Huawei. 

Dr Alexis Askitopoulos completed his PhD on the dynamics of spinor polariton condensates at the University of Southampton and went on to a senior researcher position at Skoltech (2018-2020), following up on the same research topics. 

Pavel Kokhanchik received a bachelor's degree from Moscow State University and completed his master studies at Skoltech. He was engaged in research in the field of organic polaritonics, as well as numerical simulations of various microcavities systems, under the supervision of Prof. Lagoudakis.​

Ekaterina Nguyen was a master student at Skoltech. Under the guidance of Prof Pavlos Lagoudakis, she studied the dynamics of room-temperature polariton condensates driven by long-duration pump pulses

Natalia Berloff is Professor at the Centre for Photonics and Quantum Materials at Skoltech, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Jesus College. Her research interests are in quantum hydrodynamics, understanding and exploiting coherence in non-equilibrium quantum systems: Bose Condensation of excitons and polaritons, magnons, atomic gases, and superfluid helium.  

Kirill Kalinin is pursuing his PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Berloff, specializing in modelling of various aspects of polariton condensates including spin degree of freedom, dynamics, interactions between condensates, fundamentals of polariton graph optimizers. 

Lucy Pickup completed her PhD on spinor bistability, Bloch bands and topological defect sites in polariton lattices at the University of Southampton. Since 2020, she's a junior scientist at Southampton.

Dr Helgi Sigurdsson is a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. He is investigating problems of complexity and scalability utilizing polariton graphs.

Giuseppe Buscemi is a former PhD candidate at Southampton (2011-2015), were he studied hybrid optoelectronics devices using TCSPC and FLIM techniques. He is now Chief Technology Officer at PRP Optoelectronics, a mid-size British firm developing LED based technology for various sectors of industry.

Dr. Pasquale Cilibrizzi completed his PhD on the study of fluidics, linear and nonlinear phenomena in polariton microcavities in 2015 in Southampton, where he stayed until 2017 as a postdoctoral fellow. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Heriot-Watt university in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dr Hamid Ohadi is a former postdoctoral researcher at Southampton (2011 to 2013). He is now a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, where he leads a the Quantum Fluids of Light Lab, which currently looks at strong light-matter interaction and exploiting it for new quantum technologies.

Dr. Niccolo Somaschi completed his PhD on engineering nonlinearities in organic and hybrid microcavities in Southampton in 2014. He followed his thesis with a postdoctoral position with Pascale Sellenart at the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Saclay near Paris. He's a co-founder of Quandela, a start-up offering high brightness single photon sources integrated into custom cryosystems.

Dr Peristera Andreakou is a former PhD at Southampton, who graduated her thesis on hybrid nanomaterials in 2013. She followed her PhD with postdoctoral positions at UC San Diego (USA), University of Montpellier and UPMC (France). She is now a Senior Research & Development Engineer at TRUMPF Laser UK Ltd.

Dr Junis Rindermann is a former PhD at Southampton, who graduated his thesis on Resonance Energy Transfer for Hybrid Optoelectronics in 2013. He is now a Senior Manager at Strategy&, part of the PwC network.

Dr Chunyong Li was a postdoctoral researcher in Southampton from 2007 to 2012. He followed his time at Southampton with a postdoctoral researcher position at Heriot-Watt University, then went on the become Laser Science Experimental Officer at Durham University.


Dr Elena Kamman completed her PhD on the dynamics of spinor condensates in microcavities in Southampton in 2012. She went on to hold managing and engineering positions at Attocube and at MTG Telescope Optics and is currently working for Airbus Defense and Space.

Dr Dave English is a former PhD at Southampton, who graduated his thesis in 2011. He is now Co-Founder and CTO of Raptor Digital Marketing Tools.


Dr Caryll Richards is a former postdoctoral researcher at Southampton (2009-2011). She later on became a lecturer at Aberystwyth University, then decided to change her carreer and enrolled as a medical student at Y Gymdeithas Feddygol. She's now an Academic Clinical Fellow and Specialty Registrar Radiology at East Midlands, UK.

Dr Stefan Rohrmoser is a former PhD at Southampton, who graduated his thesis in 2010. He followed his PhD with a carreer in the optoelectronics industry, with engineering and managing position at Sharp, Osram and Eaton. He is currently Managing Director of Sales at Eaton Germany.

Dr Maria Maragkou is a former PhD at Southampton, who graduated her thesis in 2010. After obtaining several postdoctoral fellowships in Quantum Optics in Spain and France, she joined the Nature group as an associate editor until her promotion to senior editor. She's now Senior Business Development Manager at the quantum computing company Riverlane.

Dr Peter Eldridge is a a PhD graduate from Southampton (2009). He is now Lead Data Scientist at SparkBeyond.

Dr Alastair Grundy is a former postdoctoral researcher at Southampton (2008-2010). He went on to hold various engineering positions at Sharp UK until becoming Chief Operating Officer of Sharp Life Science. He is currently Head Of Business Development of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Dr Giorgio Baldassarri is a former postdoctoral researcher at Southampton (2007). He went on to follow a successful career in finance, and is now Global Head of the Analytic Development Group (ADG) at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Dr Yosef Akhtman is a former postdoctoral researcher at Southampton (2007-2009). After some time as a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL, he went on to found and lead several satellite imaging related startups. He is currently Chief Scientist of Altyn. 

Nicky Brooks is administrative assistant to Prof Lagoudakis at Southampton University.