Aleksandr Sigaev, Master’s degree student of the Department of Nanoelectronics and Microelectronics at the Faculty of Instrument Engineering, Information Technologies and Electronics, PSU, undertook a seven-month internship in the Laser Centre of Hannover (LZH) in the Department of Nanotechnologies. Professor Igor Al. Averin, Doctor of Engineering, is a scientific advisor of the student at PSU. It should be noted that Aleksandr Sigaev was among eight PSU students out of 40 Russian students who were awarded the Russian Federation President grant for study abroad in 2016 – 2017.

During his internship Aleksandr Sigaev participated in research carried out by the group of Professor Boris N. Chichkov. The student also developed methods for obtaining nanoparticles LaF3:Nd3+ and studied their specific features within research and education programme “Laser micro- and nanotechnologies”.

“The major part of the research work was devoted to optimising the synthesis algorithm initially proposed to reduce the degree of agglomeration of nanoparticles, their sizes and most significantly to improve their luminescent properties. In addition to research activity in LZH, I managed to complete a 2-week intensive English course in the University of Hannover. I also had an opportunity to visit the world’s largest international exhibition dedicated to information and telecommunication technologies “CeBIT 2017” and the world’s largest industrial exhibition “Hannover Messe 2017”. The internship allowed me to gain experience in working with high-tech equipment that the Laser Centre possessed, to study new approaches to research processes and new experiment techniques, to adopt best practices of the foreign colleagues,” Aleksandr Sigaev shared his impressions of the internship.