The start of a Master thesis or PhD thesis project represents a caesura in the academic education of many students in engineering and physics. Frequently, the focus is no longer solely on acquiring theoretical knowledge and understanding physical concepts, but rather on conceptualizing, realizing, and operating an experimental setup suited to investigate the research topic at hand. This change comes with the need for a new set of skills.

This need in mind, the “Technology and Innovation Group (TIG)” of EPS and the IdeaSquare innovation space at CERN hosted the “2nd EPS TIG Hands-on Event for Science, Technology and Interface” from September 30 to October 2 at CERN, Geneva. On day 1 the 19 participating students from across Europe received introductory lectures into rapid prototyping and IP-related questions from Markus Nordberg and visited the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), the particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). On day 2 they were introduced into different technologies - NV center-based quantum sensing and nm-precise position sensing– by Prof. Jan Meijer (University Leipzig) and Olivier Acher (HORIBA), respectively, who joined remotely. Afterwards the students were assigned into groups, each being in charge of realizing one subcomponent of a tutorial experiment on said topics. Since eventually all pieces had to be integrated into a complete experiment they did not only have to work on the technical tasks, e.g., assembling the electromechanical and optical setup or establishing the data acquisition, but also had to coordinate their work with the other teams, pointing out the importance of communication and interpersonal skills in technology and scientific environments. Eventually the results were shared in a final presentation, such that all participants left Geneva with many valuable insights into the skills required to set up an experiment and the challenges that come with experimental work.

The TIG would like to thank EPS and the CERN IdeaSquare for the generous support of the event, Prof. Meijer Olivier Acher for their involvement, and Markus Nordberg and Stefan Kubsky for organizing and leading the workshop.

Presentation of measured deca-nanometer drift induced by thermal gradients in the compact superresolution sensor hands-on experiment
Image credit: Stefan Kubsky

Some twenty participants from across Europe seem to have liked the event
Image credit: Stefan Kubsky