21 February 2022

Photo: Tobias Eckhardt

Tobias Eckhardt was born and raised in Braunschweig, where he graduated in 2016. His Master Thesis, titled “Interaction energies […] in discrete cosmology with a S1xS2 spatial topology”, was, however, supervised by Prof. Rosquist from Stockholm University. It gave Tobias the opportunity to work with general relativity.

What is the topic of your research?

I’m working in the group for gravitational wave detectors from Jun.-Prof. Oliver Gerberding, who is also my supervisor, at the Institute of Experimental Physics. Roughly speaking, I’m working on improving the seismic isolation of, for instance, the mirrors used in ground-based gravitational wave detectors. We develop a small special laser sensor and our aim is to be more precise and to cover a broader range than other small sensors. In the end, the sensor will hopefully help the mirrors to be more stable, meaning they would be less shaky when for example people walk by or all the other stuff that makes the ground slightly shake in these small length regimes. We use a novel readout scheme where we modulate the lasers frequency which leads to a complex output signal. While it is not more difficult to extract the ‘distance information’ from the signal, we can measure distances much larger than just a single wavelength – as simpler interferometric sensors do – with (nearly) the same accuracy, which is an advantage.

What fascinates you about your research focus?

I get to work with electronics, optics as well as FPGA programming which is what I’m doing right now and enjoy a lot. My colleagues, who hear me swearing when I get a dozen of compilation errors, might think I don’t, but I do!

What do you like about the cluster Quantum Universe?

I really like having some interactions with other groups during the Quantum Universe Days. It’s great to be able to get an insight into the research of others. In general, I only listen to talks and presentations of people very closely related to my own research. At Quantum Universe, however, I get the chance to listen to talks that I’m interested in even if they are not directly connected to my own work, which I appreciate!

What do you like to do in your free time?

I do Kendo, which is a great sport, you should try it!