Nicolas Bigler Senn

I successfully defended a PhD in the Ultrafast Laser Physics group of Prof. Ursula Keller. My thesis was centered around the development of an ultrafast high-power optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) in the mid-infrared spectral region. To this end, I designed and set up an completely new laboratory, before building a state-of-the-art laser amplifier. In the process, I also worked on the development of new amplification geometries based on tilted periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystals. To simplify the monitoring of the laser parameters (temperature, pressure, optical power, beam pointing, etc.), I also developed a distributed data collection system.

I worked on simulation of wind flow above high resolution surfaces taken from Antarctica. More specifically, I related wind flow to snow deposition over such surfaces. I was also involved in the development of a new type of low-cost sensor for measurement of the sensible heat flux. I mainly focused on developing and programming the electronic of the sensor (SDI-12 communication protocol).

During this civil service, I was working on a network of air quality sensors placed on top of city buses in Lausanne, Switzerland. My task was to ensure that the newly deployed sensors were functioning as expected. In this scope, I designed and wrote a model-based fault detection software. Java/Swing and Perl were the main tools used in this project.

I designed and implemented two softwares in Java/Swing related to dot-matrix hologram. The first one aimed at generating gratings which were to be printed on the master plate, whereas the second was used to manage the hardware (laser, motors) during the printing process.