Dr. Marianne Aellen

Marianne joined the Atwater group in May 2022 as a postdoctoral fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). She obtained a BSc in Mechanical and Process Engineering and a MSc in Micro and Nanosystems from ETH Zurich. For her doctoral degree, she worked on plasmonic lasers under the supervision of Prof. D.J. Norris at ETH Zurich. At Caltech, her research focuses on the structural stabilization of lightsails employing clever designs and developing new fabrication routes. This research is part of the Breakthrough Starshot initiative that aims at developing probes for interstellar space exploration.