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Jörgen Stenarson to lead new terahertz laboratory
Jörgen Stenarson has been appointed as head of the new national laboratory for terahertz characterisation - which will be hosted by MC2. He is recruited from SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden and will take over on March 1 2015. The plans for the laboratory were revealed at a well-attended information meeting just before Christmas.
"This is supported as a scientific infrastructure by the management at Chalmers, and that is a very important classification for us. We have proven that we can create an open environment for science and for the users", says Jan Grahn, Professor in Microwave Electronics at MC2.
He makes up the team of principal investigators for the new laboratory together with professors Herbert Zirath and Jan Stake, MC2, Victor Belitsky, Earth and Space Sciences, and Per-Simon Kildal, Signals and systems - S2.
Different departments join forces
A project group has also been formed, with Mattias Thorsell and Simon He, Microwave Electronics, MC2, Robin Dahlbäck, Michael Andersson and Sergey Cherdnichenko, Terahertz and Millimetre Wave Technology, MC2, Erik Sundin, The Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD), Earth and Space Sciences, and Ashraf Uz Zaman, Antenna Systems, S2.
Altogether the lab will engage about one hundred researchers and PhD students from Chalmers alone.
"This is a very good example for when different departments go together to get money for research infrastructure", says Jan Grahn.
The aim for the project team was to write technical specifications for the equipment needed and was partly done during the autumn of 2014.
"They were looking on this regarding specific equipment, but also regarding potential synergies between all types of equipment. It is a complicated work for us, because there are many options, and very expensive equipment, but I feel we have got a very good start", says Jan Grahn.
Large investments to be made
Large investments are planned during 2015 and 2016. Jan Grahn estimates these to around 50 MSEK, mainly made possible by a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW).
"We are going to create a state of the art lab for terahertz characterisation. It will have a lot of interesting equipment both for on-wafer as well as free-space probing. This is very expensive equipment, so we need those millions to carry this through", says Jan Grahn.
The core of investments will be in the range of terahertz components (on-wafer and free-space & waveguide measurements), terahertz systems (transceiver setup, Tbit/s system setup) and terahertz spectroscopy (Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), Spectroscopy). A cryo cooler and a DC probe station will also be added as side equipment to the infrastructure. The new equipment were presented in detail by members of the project group.
Taking advantage of decades of earlier research
The new laboratory will be located on the 6th floor of the MC2 building and has 45 square metres at its disposal for the time being. But this is maybe not enough:
"It's five rooms and we have already a lot of equipment gathered throughout the years, but it remains to be seen if we can fit everything”, says Jan Grahn with a smile.
It is really no coincidence that the new environment will be hosted by MC2 and Chalmers.
"We are in fact taking advantage of decades of microwave and antenna research. We are indeed building up on a good tradition. The news is that we are carrying this out in one common laboratory infrastructure for high-frequency characterisation", Jan Grahn pointed out in his presentation.
New head appointed
Head of the laboratory will be Dr Jörgen Stenarson:
"Jörgen has more than ten years of post-doctoral experience in microwave measurement techniques, which makes him very, very good for this position. He will be a key person in pulling this together", says Jan Grahn.
As lab director Jörgen Stenarson will be responsible for the operational and technical development in collaboration with users and principal investigators.
Text and photo: Michael Nystås
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