PhD student Virginia Ciriano-Tejel gets awarded the British-Spanish Scholarship

Last 6th June, PhD student Virginia Ciriano-Tejel was invited to the Spanish Embassy in London to attend an official ceremony where she was awarded the prestigious British-Spanish scholarship. This was the 12th Awards Ceremony and it was kindly hosted by His Excellency the Spanish Ambassador Mr Carlos Bastarreche, Honorary President of the British-Spanish Society. The Programme has been helping to support more than 65 cutting-edge post-graduate projects and strengthen individual and institutional links between the United Kingdom and Spain, sponsoring research in fields as diverse as physics, medicine, urban planning, engineering, linguistics, literature, architecture, marine archaeology and music.

After the ceremony, Virginia said: "I am really happy about this award! With this funds, I plan to study silicon quantum dots, and specifically how to control electrically the spin of an electron confined in a silicon quantum dot using valley splitting. For this purpose, I will collaborate with an expert based in Madrid - and she added - This is a unique opportunity to gain experience in running a project and working side by side with another Institution and I am thrilled to start this collaboration."

Virginia is currently doing her PhD in the Quantum Spin Dynamics group led by Prof John Morton where she is researching silicon quantum dots used as spin qubits for quantum computation. You could learn more about her project through our 'Meet our students' Instagram page or checking the SQD group's website.