You grew up in Deva, Transylvania, in a religious family. You moved to Szeged in 2011. How did you come to choose this city on the River Tisza?
The fact that I swam competitively from the age of six played an important role in this. From September 2011, I continued my sports career at the Szeged Swimming Club. At the same time, I was admitted to the city’s Piarist Secondary Grammar School. Transylvania lacks church-run schools with similar profiles.
You finished secondary school in 2017. Then you studied theology for four years, and after graduation you became a physics student at the University of Szeged. What is behind this unusual change?
In secondary school, I was very much into maths and physics. These were the two subjects which I studied at advanced level and in which I took part in competitions. Of the two, physics got closer to my heart, mostly because of the experiments I saw during the lessons and because of the clear explanations. After my secondary school years, I studied theology at the Sapientia College of Theology of Religious Orders in Budapest. After graduating, I decided to return to the subject I had loved in secondary school. Another factor affecting my choice was that I consider Szeged much more liveable than Budapest.
As a believer, why do you think it is important to get to know the created world, and how do you reconcile faith with science?
As a Catholic Christian, I am deeply convinced that God created the world to make it man’s home on Earth. To learn about it more thoroughly means not only the exploration of our own home, but also the exploration of God’s work and love, as we come to understand deeper and deeper layers of the meticulously crafted work that He destined for us to live in.
The unity of faith and science is deeply rooted in my upbringing, since the motto of the Piarist Order is “Pietas et litterae”, which in loose translation means “religiousness and science”. My secondary school attached importance not only to our thorough education in faith, but also in academic subjects. Even if this was not explicitly stated, the school’s ethos clearly centred around the unity of the two. Later, during my theological studies, I became interested in the theology of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, whose important thesis is that in Jesus Christ the world received the gift of Truth itself. The message of Christianity is therefore that it can communicate the Truth of God to the world. I believe that through study and research we come closer to the Truth, and thus, even if indirectly, to God.
When and how did you get involved with ELI ALPS?
In 2023, at the end of my first year in the Physics BSc programme, I noticed that the institute was advertising student jobs for undergraduates. I had already heard a lot about ELI ALPS, and it was becoming clear that within physics laser optics was the field I was really interested in. Therefore, I applied practically without a second thought. I was admitted to the Ultrafast Nanoscience Group for a three-week internship. This time was sufficient for me to get a rough idea of what the group was doing. At the end of the internship, the group leader offered me the opportunity to do student research in the group. I was happy to take this opportunity.
You are conducting time-resolved ellipsometry measurements on surface plasmons. Why is this project interesting?
Nowadays, both surface plasmons and time-resolved measurements are popular topics in physics. Surface plasmons are generated by excitation on metal surfaces. For this purpose, we use a 10 fs pulsed laser. For me, the most thrilling thing is to be in the lab next to a piece of equipment that is unique in the world. If necessary – if the measurements require a new, better setup – I too can take part in assembling the setup when members of the group modify its geometry.
Your supervisor is Judit Budai, a research fellow at ELI ALPS. Under her mentorship, you have come third place in the national round of OTDK (National Conference of Scientific Students’ Associations). During your measurements, you used the ultrafast ellipsometer developed by the Ultrafast Nanoscience Group. What exactly did you measure and what were your findings?
In my research, I measured the propagation velocity of the plasmon wave packet of about 20 fs, the decay length of the plasmon packet with time-resolved pump-probe methods, and I also demonstrated that the time-resolved ellipsometer is suitable for detecting small optical changes caused by plasmons. We confirmed a 3% change in the dielectric constant. By analysing my measurements, we hope to gain deeper insights into the energy transfer processes between the plasmon polariton and the gold substrate.
Photos: Gábor Balázs