PhD dissertations by INESCTEC awarded by the Portuguese Optics and Photonics Society

PhD dissertations by INESCTEC awarded by the Portuguese Optics and Photonics Society

The researchers Susana Silva and Raquel Queirós were awarded by the Portuguese Optics and Photonics Society with a best PhD thesis and an honourable mention, respectively, for their doctoral studies in Physics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Porto (FCUP). The researchers concluded their doctoral studies in 2013 while doing research at INESC TEC’s Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP)*.

05th June 2014

The dissertation by Susana Silva, titled Fiber optic structures for refractive index and gas sensing, defended at FCUP, presented new configurations for optical fibre sensors especially designed to measure the refraction index and detect gases. The thesis was co-supervised by José Luís Santos, also researcher at CAP, and supervised by Xavier Malcata (Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto).

In her dissertation, also defended at FCUP, Raquel Queirós developed new biosensors in order to detect and quantify microbial contaminants in water used by humans. The thesis was supervised by Maria Goreti Sales, from the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP), and co-supervised by Paulo Silva Marques Santos (INESC TEC/FCUP).

The researchers received grants from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) as part of the Program for Individual PhD Grants. The students conducted their research at CAP. They were also board members of SPIE’s (International Society for Optics and Photonics) Student Chapter in 2013. Raquel Queirós is currently a Research Fellow at the INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, while Susana Silva is still working at CAP with a postdoctoral FCT grant.

The researchers will be receiving their awards on 30 May during the Conference AOP 2014 – Applications of Optics and Photonics, taking place in the city of Aveiro, Portugal between 28 and 30 May.

The SPOF was created in November 2009 to promote scientific and technological research in optics, as well as training and education in pure and applied optics and photonics.

*Former Optoelectronics and Electronic Systems Unit (UOSE)

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this article are associated with the following partner institutions: INESC Porto and FCUP.