About

Who are you?

I’m Marwan. I originally thought to use this website to chart my journey as a physicist, with the goal to get better. But, a lot more soul goes into that than I realised. I want to share that, since maybe it’ll help others.

Where you from, what you on, and what’s your story?

I come from the UK, I work in Germany as of 2024, and by the books I’m an ion trapper, specialising in ablation loading.

What’s ablation loading about, then?

Fire a high-energy, nanosecond laser pulse at some metal, and it becomes a gas, shooting off like a bullet. With the right setup, you can catch these ‘bullets’ with a ion trap. It’s actually quite a deep topic.

What do you load ions for?

Each ion is a qubit. I’m happy to elaborate, but I think the “What is a qubit?” question has been Googled enough by Young Sheldon-types in quirky bow-ties before.

Can you tie a bow-tie?

Yeah. It’s one of many pointless skills I picked up in my grad studies in Oxford. You need to wear a bow-tie in the exam.

I bet you were just bursting to mention you went to Oxford.

Not really, this is just the ‘About’ section of my website so it felt like I should mention it.

What would you do if you didn’t go there, then?

I don’t know, I’m just trying to help others out with what I can do.