From Bucharest to Kaiserslautern: Students Gain Hands-On Experience in Laser Research
Three students from the National University of Science and Technology Politehnica București are spending their summer gaining hands-on research experience at Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (RPTU).
From July 1 to August 31, 2026, Alexandra Cana,Andrei Iancu, and Denisa Glodianu are taking part in a 60-day research internship at the Department of Physics, within the Optical Quantum Metrology research group led by Prof. Dr. Ioachim Pupeza and coordinated by Dr. Martin Micica. The internship is financed in most part through the Erasmus+ mobility programme.
The program combines theoretical courses and extensive practical laboratory experience, with the focus on passive laser enhancement cavities.
The students are exploring cavity stability, finesse, enhancement, mode matching and the Pound-Drever-Hall locking technique, while also working on the realization and performance assessment of an enhancement cavity for a continuous-wave laser.
Another key component is the design of monitoring and interlock systems for high-power laser laboratories, giving the students practical insight into fail-safe design, sensors, control logic and laboratory safety requirements.
Beyond their technical work, the students are participating in the regular journal clubs and scientific discussions at the Laboratory for Lightwave Metrology, becoming actively involved in the academic life of the research group.
In their own words:
My main motivation was that I wanted to learn more about photonics physics coming from a nuclear physics background working at ELI. The program seemed very interesting from the start when our professor presented it. I liked learning the theoretical part of building an enhancement cavity and doing all the calculations and simulations needed, but I especially enjoyed the hands-on process of building the four mirror cavity. (Alexandra)
From the moment I heard about this opportunity I knew it would be a hard task. Although my interests were mostly related to programming and data acquisition because that’s what I do at ELI-NP, I found myself enjoying my time here and really learned a lot of useful things. Now I hope to pursue more practical physics experiments and combine my passion for programming with knowledge gained from this internship at RPTU. (Andrei)
Before I came here, I never knew engineering, and especially photonics, can be this interesting and fun! I was really motivated to get into this mobility, because I wanted to see how experts work and to have a peek into what my future can turn into. I enjoyed gaining hands-on experience in building an enhancement cavity and I am eager to focus more on optics physics in the future. (Denisa)
This internship offers the opportunity to gain international research experience and also strengthens the academic collaboration between Politehnica București and RPTU. In our view, the program has been successful, and we hope to welcome students again in the future.