Find out who were the former students and graduates of GoLP and where they are now. AlumniLuis O. Silva
Jorge Vieira
Kevin Schoeffler
Principal Investigators
Luis O. Silva 
Luís O. Silva is Professor of Physics at Técnico Lisboa (IST). He obtained his degrees (Lic. 1992, PhD 1997 and Habilitation 2005) from IST. He was a post-doc at UCLA from 1997 to 2001. His scientific contributions are focused in the interaction of intense beams of particles and lasers with plasmas, from a fundamental point of view and towards their applications for secondary sources for biology and medicine.
He has authored more than 200 papers and 3 patents, was awarded two Advanced Grants from the ERC (2010 and 2015), served on the program/selection committees of conferences and prizes worldwide, and on the scientific/advisory committee of several EU infrastructures. He has supervised 7 PhD students and 7 post-doctoral fellows whose work was recognized with several prizes.
Luís O. Silva was awarded the 2011 Science Prize of TU Lisbon, the IBM Scientific Prize 2003, the 2001 Abdus Salam ICTP Medal for Excellence in Nonlinear Plasma Physics by a Young Researcher, and the Gulbenkian Prize for Young Researchers 1994. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and to the Global Young Academy in 2009, Fellow of the European Physical Society in 2017, and Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences, and Corresponding Member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences in 2019.
Research Interests: Check my personal webpage here
Latest Publications:- Machine-learning-based models in particle-in-cell codes for advanced physics extensions, Journal Of Plasma Physics 88 (2022) p. issue 6
- Kinetic theory of particle-in-cell simulation plasma and the ensemble averaging technique, Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 64 (2022) p. 115014
- The AWAKE Run 2 Programme and Beyond, Symmetry 14 (2022) p. 1680
Ricardo Fonseca
Ricardo Fonseca was born in Lisbon, Portugal on September 11th, 1973. He received his degree in Physics Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico in 1996 and joined the Laser and Plasma Group at this institute. In 2000 he spent one year at the University of California Los Angeles working on the numerical modelling of high intensity laser plasma interactions. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the Technical University of Lisbon in 2002, on the subject of Laser-Plasma Electron Accelerators. He is a researcher for the Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear and in 2003 he took up a teaching position at ISCTE - Lisbon University Institute, where he is currently a teniored Full Professor. He has over 100 publications in leading scientific journals. He was awarded the Oscar Buneman award in 2000. He is currently the Dean of Technology and Architecture at ISCTE-IUL.
Latest Publications:- The AWAKE Run 2 Programme and Beyond, Symmetry 14 (2022) p. 1680
- Interaction between electrostatic collisionless shocks generates strong magnetic fields, New Journal of Physics 24 (2022) p. 063016
- Slowdown of interpenetration of two counterpropagating plasma slabs due to collective effects, Physical Review E 105 (2022) p. 035204
Jorge Vieira
Jorge Vieira is an assistant professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Lisbon. He received his Licenciatura in Physics Engineering from IST. He was a visiting scholar at University of California and Los Angeles in 2006 and 2008 and received the PhD in Physics in 2010 from IST. Jorge Vieira was a post-doctoral fellow at IST from 2010-2012, held a Humboldt Fellowship at Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich during 2012-2013 and was am FCT researcher (development level) during 2016-2019. He has authored more than 80 papers and 1 patent. Jorge Vieira received the Technical University of Lisbon/DelloiteYoung Researcher Prize in the category of Physics in 2011 and received an excellent teacher award at IST in 2017.
Research Interests: My research employs advanced computing and theory to exploit the properties of intense lasers and particle beams towards compact plasma-based accelerators and light sources. The focus of my recent work is on structured light, on how it interacts with plasma at ultra-high intensity, and on superradiant emission mechanisms in plasma. I am involved in the AWAKE experiment at CERN, and, whenever possible, I collaborate with both theoreticians and experimentalists with whom I seek to participate and elaborate experimental proposals to test novel ideas.
Latest Publications:- Mitigation of the Onset of Hosing in the Linear Regime through Plasma Frequency Detuning, Physical Review Letters 130 (2023) p. 115001
- Arbitrarily structured laser pulses, Physical Review Research 5 (2023) p. 013085
- Exact solutions for the electromagnetic fields of a flying focus, Physical Review A 107 (2023) p. 013513
Thomas Grismayer
Thomas Grismayer received a Master's Degree in Plasma Physics in 2003 at University Paris VI (France) with a specialization in Laser-Plasma interaction. Thomas Grismayer completed a PhD degree in Plasma Physics at the Centre de Physique Théorique of Ecole Polytechnique in 2007 under the supervision of Prof. Patrick Mora. Right after in 2008, Thomas Grismayer moved to the United States to work as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Warren Mori, in the Plasma Simulation Group at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2011, Thomas Grismayer received a post-doctoral fellowship from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) and started to work in the Group for Lasers and Plasmas (GoLP) at Instituto Superior Técnico. In 2013 he was awarded a Starting Grant from FCT (Researcher) and he is currently continuing his research at GoLP.
Research Interests: - Ion acceleration in dense target irradiated by intense laser (plasma expansion models) - Parametric instabilities related to inertial fusion (nonlinear and multiple dimensional effects associated with electron plasma waves) - Shear instabilities (magnetic field generation, particle acceleration) - QED effects in plasma in extreme high fields laser setup (pair cascades, gamma-ray emission) and in astrophysics (magnetic reconnection, neutron stars modeling)
Latest Publications:- Model of pulsar pair cascades in non-uniform electric fields: Growth rate, density profile, and screening time, Physics of Plasmas 29 (2022) p. 052902
- Coherent Emission from QED Cascades in Pulsar Polar Caps, The Astrophysical Journal Letters 919 (2021) p. L4
- Quantum Electrodynamics vacuum polarization solver, New Journal of Physics 23 (2021) p. 095005
PhD Researchers
Marija Vranic
Marija Vranic is currently a Post-Doctoral researcher at IST. She had her PhD from IST under supervision of Luis O. Silva. After the PhD, she spent some time in ELI Beamlines, working on laser-matter interactions at extreme intensities. She obtained her MSc degree in physics at the University of Belgrade, under supervision of Prof. Zoran Lj. Petrovic. During the undergraduate studies, she has done an internship in the area of laser-matter interaction at Queen's University of Belfast, with Prof. Marco Borghesi.
"My interest for physics was triggered at Petnica Science Center (http://www.petnica.rs/), a unique out-of-school learning facility where the students have an opportunity to do an independent scientific project, write a paper and even have their own interdisciplinary annual conference where they present their work. Here, one could hear about many "hot" topics of today's science, because most of the Serbian successful scientists around the world are Petnica alumni, and they are always happy to come back to talk about the science they are doing today. "
Extra curricular activities: tennis and dancing.
Research Interests: radiation reaction, wakefield acceleration, classical-QED transitions in plasma
Latest Publications:- Creation and direct laser acceleration of positrons in a single stage, Physical Review Accelerators and Beams 26 (2023) p. 011301
- Optimal laser focusing for positron production in laser–electron scattering, New Journal of Physics 23 (2021) p. 115001
- Collisionless shock acceleration in the corona of an inertial confinement fusion pellet with possible application to ion fast ignition, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 379 (2021) p. 20200039
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Kevin Schoeffler
Kevin Schoeffler is currently researcher in the group of laser plasmas (GoLP), part of Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN), at Instituto Superior Técnico, where he works with Luis Silva.
From 2012 to July 2014 he worked under Nuno Loureiro as a postdoctoral researcher.
Kevin completed his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Maryland in 2012, where he worked with James Drake.
He also completed an undergraduate degree in physics, and one in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland in 2005.
Research Interests: Fluid dynamics, plasma physics where kinetic effects can play a role; Magnetic field generation and magnetic reconnection and their applications in understanding many systems in space and astrophysics, as well as in laser experimental setups; Recent focus on reconnection in extreme environments with strong magnetic fields, leading to both strongly radiative regimes as well as e-e+ pair production; Computer modeling of plasmas using parallel processing on supercomputers including Marenostrum, Supermuc, and Juqueen
Latest Publications:- Interaction between electrostatic collisionless shocks generates strong magnetic fields, New Journal of Physics 24 (2022) p. 063016
- Slowdown of interpenetration of two counterpropagating plasma slabs due to collective effects, Physical Review E 105 (2022) p. 035204
- Magnetized current filaments as a source of circularly polarized light, Journal of Plasma Physics 87 (2021) p. 905870114
Thales Silva
Thales Silva is currently a Post-Doc at IST working on the subject of plasma-based accelerators.
He received his MSc and Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil. In his time at UFRGS, he worked with wave-particle interaction in magnetized plasmas, statistical mechanics of systems with long-range interactions, in particular, mismatched intense particle beams, and the envelope beam dynamics for intense bunched beams in LINACs.
Research Interests: Density down-ramp injection in LWFA; ion motion, plasma heating, and long-time evolution in plasma accelerators; laser-plasma interaction.
Latest Publications:- Weibel instability beyond bi-Maxwellian anisotropy, Physical Review E 104 (2021) p. 035201
- Stable Positron Acceleration in Thin, Warm, Hollow Plasma Channels, Physical Review Letters 127 (2021) p. 104801
- EuPRAXIA Conceptual Design Report, The European Physical Journal Special Topics 229 (2020) p. 3675
Wenlong Zhang
Wenlong Zhang (张文龙) is currently a post-doc at the Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN) at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), with Prof. Luis Silva. In June 2012, he completed his bachelor degree in physics in Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China. After that, in July 2017, he received his Ph. D degree in plasma physics from Peking University, Beijing, China. His Ph. D research focused on laser ion acceleration under the supervision of Prof. Bin Qiao. Now in the post-doc phase, he will focus on the laser absorption in the pair plasmas, particularly in the extreme fields where QED effects play an important role. Wenlong is the recipient of the First Prize Scholarship (2010, Lanzhou University) and the National Scholarship (2016, Peking University).
Research Interests: Theoretical and numerical study in laser ion acceleration, including the collisionless electrostatic shock acceleration and magnetic vortex acceleration in near-critical plasmas; laser interaction with the pair plasmas in the presence of extreme fields where QED effects play an important role.
Latest Publications:- High-order harmonic generation in an electron-positron-ion plasma, Physical Review E 103 (2021) p. 013206
- Monoenergetic ion beam acceleration from transversely confined near-critical plasmas by intense laser pulses, Physics of Plasmas 24 (2017) p. 093108
- Generation of quasi-monoenergetic heavy ion beams via staged shock wave acceleration driven by intense laser pulses in near-critical plasmas, New Journal of Physics 18 (2016) p. 093029
Bertrand Martinez
My main research field is the theory and simulation of relativistic laser-plasma interaction. In particular, I have become an experienced researcher in modeling this problem under extreme conditions, as expected on new French and international laser facilities, involving plasma and quantum electrodynamics (QED) processes. During my Ph.D. thesis, defended in December 2018, I contributed to the development of X-ray and gamma-ray sources as envisaged on the Apollon or ELI lasers. During my first (and brief) post-doctoral project at LULI (Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau), I dimensioned a laboratory astrophysics experiment related to nuclear physics. During my second post-doctoral project at GoLP (University of Lisbon, Portugal), I worked on the energy dissipation of some stellar explosions (gamma-ray bursts) and also opened a new research path for the production and acceleration of positrons with ultra-intense laser pulses.
Research Interests: Relativistic laser-plasma interaction, radiative and quantum electrodynamics processes, ion acceleration, neutron sources, particle-in-cell codes, high-performance computing, beam-plasma instabilities, fireball model, Gamma Ray Bursts
Latest Publications:- Creation and direct laser acceleration of positrons in a single stage, Physical Review Accelerators and Beams 26 (2023) p. 011301
- Compton-driven beam formation and magnetization via plasma microinstabilities, Journal of Plasma Physics 87 (2021) p. 905870313
- Synchrotron radiation from ultrahigh-intensity laser-plasma interactions and competition with Bremsstrahlung in thin foil targets, Physical Review Research 2 (2020) p. 043341
Graduate Students
Diogo Carvalho
Diogo was born in 1995 in Lisbon, Portugal. He obtained his M.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics from Instituto Superior Técnico in 2018. For his Master's Thesis, he developed machine learning algorithms for fusion plasma tomography with applications to JET and COMPASS. After his studies, he was a research fellow for IPFN's FRIENDS project and later a trainee at the Artificial Intelligence & Operations Innovation Team of the ESA. Currently, he is a PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Luís O. Silva (GoLP), Prof. Diogo R. Ferreira (IPFN), and Prof. E. Paulo Alves (UCLA) working on the intersection of machine learning and high performance computing for laser-plasma simulations.
Róbert Babjak
Robert was born in 1995 in Humenné, Slovakia. He obtained his MSc degree in computational physics at Czech Technical University in Prague. The master's thesis was supervised by Dr. Jan Psikal and was focused on hot electron generation mechanisms in the preplasma of thin overdense targets irradiated by the intense laser pulse. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Group for Lasers and Plasmas under the supervision of Dr. Marija Vranic. The work is focused on the acceleration of electrons and radiation generation in underdense plasmas by high-intensity lasers.
Rui Torres
Rui Torres was born in 1994 in Lisbon, Portugal. He started as an intern at the theory and simulation team of Group of Lasers and Plasmas (GoLP)/IPFN to investigate the role of 6-photon scattering processes in the polarization of vacuum. He obtained his MSc degree in Engineering Physics at Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa (IST/UL). The topic of his MSc thesis was realistic modelling of vacuum polarization induced light scattering scenarios in extreme intense fields under the supervision of Professor Luís O. Silva and Dr. Thomas Grismayer. Thereupon, he was awarded a grant to further study the effects of an imperfect vacuum or imperfect electromagnetic pulses in the characterization of the QED signatures induced. Currently, his PhD work intends to explore magnetospheric plasma dynamics in the vicinity of rotating compact objects with general relativistic considerations.
Research Interests: Extremely High-Intensity Laser Physics, Vacuum polarization, QED processes below the critical Schwinger regime, High Harmonic generation from light scattering scenarios in extreme intense fields, general relativity, astrophysical plasmas, pulsar and black hole magnetospheres.
Latest Publications:- Quantum Electrodynamics vacuum polarization solver, New Journal of Physics 23 (2021) p. 095005
Mariana Moreira
Mariana is pursuing a PhD in Engineering Physics in the field of plasma wakefield acceleration, under the supervision of Jorge Vieira (GoLP), Bernhard Holzer (CERN) and Patric Muggli (CERN). She was born in Lisbon in 1993.
Mariana has been collaborating with the AWAKE experiment at CERN, a proof-of-principle experiment for proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration, since her MSc thesis. Her current doctoral work focuses on the physics behind two pivotal instabilities for AWAKE: the hosing and self-modulation instabilities.
Before that, Mariana obtained a BSc degree in Engineering Physics from the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), having simultaneously acquired some experience as a lab assistant and teaching assistant at TUB, and as an undergraduate student at CERN.
Research Interests: plasma wakefield acceleration, hosing instability, self-modulation instability
Latest Publications:- Mitigation of the Onset of Hosing in the Linear Regime through Plasma Frequency Detuning, Physical Review Letters 130 (2023) p. 115001
- The AWAKE Run 2 Programme and Beyond, Symmetry 14 (2022) p. 1680
- Analysis of proton bunch parameters in the AWAKE experiment, Journal of Instrumentation 16 (2021) p. P11031
Miguel Pardal
Born 1995 near Lisbon, Started an internship in the summer of 2017. Currently working in that same internship and starting the thesis project under the supervision of Jorge Vieira.
Latest Publications:- Nonlinear Thomson scattering with ponderomotive control, Physical Review E 105 (2022) p. 065201
- Generalized superradiance for producing broadband coherent radiation with transversely modulated arbitrarily diluted bunches, Nature Physics 17 (2021) p. 99-104
Bernardo Malaca
Bernardo was born in 1995 in Alcanena, Portugal. He is pursuing a PhD in Engineering Physics in the field of spatiotemporally correlated light and its interaction with particle beams, under the supervision of Jorge Vieira and Ricardo Fonseca (GoLP). Before that he obtained the MSc degree at IST. The thesis focused on using genetic algorithms for optimising laser-particle interactions.
Research Interests: Laser Plasma Wakefield Acceleration, spatiotemporal correlated light pulses, particle-in-cell codes.
Latest Publications:- Arbitrarily structured laser pulses, Physical Review Research 5 (2023) p. 013085
- Exact solutions for the electromagnetic fields of a flying focus, Physical Review A 107 (2023) p. 013513
- Nonlinear Thomson scattering with ponderomotive control, Physical Review E 105 (2022) p. 065201
Camilla Willim
Camilla received her master’s degree in physics in 2018 at the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf (HHU), Germany. Her master’s project was directly related to laser–plasma physics and under the supervision of PD Dr. Götz Lehmann. She investigated two-dimensional plasma photonic crystals — plasma structures with unique optical properties.
Camilla is currently a graduate student at IST. She is pursuing her PhD in the Group for Lasers and Plasmas (GoLP) under the supervision of Prof. Jorge Vieira and Prof. Luís O. Silva. Camilla’s work focusses on non-linear optics of plasmas in the critical density limit at high intensities driven by structured light.
Chiara Badiali
Chiara was born in 1995 in Rome.
She got her bachelor's and master's degree from Sapienza, University of Rome. During these years she focused particularly on Theoretical Particle Physics, covering also the basics of General Relativity and Plasma Physics.
She graduated with a thesis in collaboration with the ATLAS experiment at CERN, entitled "Truth Flavor Tagging Algorithm based on Recursive Neural Network Techniques for the ALTAS Experiment" under the supervision of prof. Marumi Kado. The dissertation was focused on data analysis and b-tagging using Machine Learning Techniques to optimize the latter.
She's currently involved in a Ph.D. at Instituto Superior Técnico in the Group for Lasers and Plasmas (GoLP) under the supervision of Prof. Jorge Vieira.
Latest Publications:- Machine-learning-based models in particle-in-cell codes for advanced physics extensions, Journal Of Plasma Physics 88 (2022) p. issue 6
Pablo Bilbao
Pablo received his master's in Physics in 2020 from Lancaster University in the UK. His work, supervised by Dr. Elisabetta Boella, was focused on proton acceleration via laser-plasma interaction. The main focus of his research was on understanding how different parameters affect Target Normal Sheath Acceleration and how to optimise them to achieve better proton beams. Pablo is currently pursuing a PhD within the Group for Lasers and Plasmas (GoLP) under the supervision of Prof. Luís O. Silva. He is studying the interaction between high energy radition and plasmas. Such setups can lead to novel acceleration and other interesting extreme plasma phenomena.
Research Interests: Laser-plasma interactions, Ion acceleration in dense target irradiated by intense laser, electron acceleration, astrophysical plasmas, particle-in-cell codes, high-performance computing
Latest Publications:- Machine-learning-based models in particle-in-cell codes for advanced physics extensions, Journal Of Plasma Physics 88 (2022) p. issue 6
Óscar Amaro
Óscar Amaro was born in Faro in 1998. He is currently developing his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Marija Vranic on QED-Plasma Physics and Quantum Algorithms at Instituto Superior Técnico. This work addresses issues such as optimal positron production in laser-electron scattering in current and near-future Petawatt facilities and the possibility of using quantum computers to solve plasma physics problems.
Latest Publications:- Optimal laser focusing for positron production in laser–electron scattering, New Journal of Physics 23 (2021) p. 115001
Filipe Cruz
Filipe Cruz was born in 1998, in Leiria, Portugal. He is currently finishing the last year of his Master's programme in Physics Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico and working on his master thesis under the supervision of Fábio Cruz and Prof. Luís Oliveira e Silva. His thesis consists on the study of laser-driven, ion scale magnetospheres in laboratory plasmas through the performance of multiple collisionless particle-in-cell simulations.
Latest Publications:- Laser-driven, ion-scale magnetospheres in laboratory plasmas. I. Experimental platform and first results, Physics of Plasmas 29 (2022) p. 042901
- Laser-driven, ion-scale magnetospheres in laboratory plasmas. II. Particle-in-cell simulations, Physics of Plasmas 29 (2022) p. 032902
MSc. Students
Rafael Almeida
Rafael Almeida was born in Viseu in 2000. He is now starting his first year of Master's programme in Physics Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico, while working under the supervision of Prof. Jorge Vieira and Marija Vranic studying the transport of optical angular momentum to charged particles. Apart from physics, his interests also include listening to music and biking.
Bernardo Barbosa
Born and studying in Lisbon, Bernardo Barbosa is currently doing his first year of Master's in Engineering Physics at Instituto Superior Técnico. At the moment, he is working on a project under the supervision of Marija Vranic in order to deepen his knowledge on the area of plasma physics and also to better understand the world of research in physics. Apart from physics, he also enjoys listening to music, and, if time allows, playing some videogames.
Latest Publications:- Creation and direct laser acceleration of positrons in a single stage, Physical Review Accelerators and Beams 26 (2023) p. 011301
High Performance Computing Support
Paulo Abreu
Born in Lisbon in 1968.
PhD in Physical Engineering at the Technical University of Lisbon in 2010.
Working currently at JET, Culham Center for Fusion Energy, UK.
Research Interests: Plasma Physics, Numerical Simulation, Large-Scale Visualization, CUDA, OpenCL, Scientific Computing, Parallel Computing
