After 36 months, I am no longer a QuESTech fellow! But I am not quite a doctor yet...
I will submit my thesis very soon to the doctoral school, and then have the defense in December. In the meantime, I am looking forward to our conference in Sweden, and other conferences I plan to attend in France - fingers crossed that the plan for them to be held in-person does not have to change due to, an ever-changing situation...
Physics continues...
I have been working recently on radiative heat current fluctuations, i.e. how the heat absorbed by a receiving body varies in space and time according to its own properties, those of the emitter, and the spatial separation. Studying fluctuations, or noise, can tell us more information about the physics of a system compared to the average signal. Take a look at the plot below, which shows the finite frequency and wavevector noise spectrum of heat current exchanged by parallel two-dimensional metallic layers.
In the plot above we see the presence of a resonant signature, reflecting the dominant surface plasmon heat transfer channel. If observed (not at all trivial), this could provide proof of the importance of collective excitations in these systems!