Mission accomplished Dr. Mikolas! Go Dodgers!

Depiction of a charge density wave (i.e. plasmon) in electrons on helium coupled to a microwave cavity field. The plasmon and cavity are coupled with coupling rate g, and the plasmon and cavity have loss rates γ and κ, respectively.

On March 28, 2025 Camille Mikolas successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Hybrid cavity-plasmon mode engineering with electrons on helium".

Camille's Ph.D. work focused on pioneering experiments integrating systems of electrons trapped above the surface of superfluid helium with circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) based systems.

Camille and her collaborators were able to create microchannel devices allowing for the engineering of tailor-made charge density waves (i.e. plasmons) in electrons on helium with a frequency compatible with cQED sytems. Camille also developed novel device architectures, and measurement protocols, for coupling these collective excitations to superconducting resonators. Her experiments lay the foundation for interfacing collective excitations of the electrons with quantum circuits to realize hybrid cavitiy opto-plasmonic systems.

Camille also collaborated on a number experiments aimed at developing hybrid quantum systems based on coupling superconducting qubits with surface and bulk acoustic wave resonators to investiate fundamental and applied aspects of quantum acoustic devices.

Nothing says “I’ve just successfully defended my thesis” like putting your feet up on a lock-in amplifier and scrolling TikTok.

Now that Camille has graduated she will be taking on a position as quantum engineer working with the Microsoft Quantum Computing Team. Congratulations Camille on an amazingly fantastic Ph.D.! You'll be missed by everyone here at the LHQS, but hopefully we'll be seeing you at the meetings of March.