Hi! Welcome to Zirdi's website
About Me
My name is M. Zirdi Syukur (he/him), an Indonesian physicist, engineer, and occasional musician! My research interests lie both in analogue quantum simulation and quantum sensing, reflecting my undergraduate and professional research experience. Looking ahead, I’m particularly interested in many-body physics, quantum information scrambling and dynamics, non-equilibrium phenomena, and enhanced quantum metrology. I’m also interested in bridging academia and industry to help bring practical quantum technologies closer to real-world applications.
I’m currently pursuing a master’s degree in Quantum Technologies at the University of Oxford. Previously, I worked as a researcher in the atomic magnetometry group at the Quantum Innovation Centre (Q.InC), A*STAR, in Singapore. I completed my bachelor’s degree in Physics at Yale-NUS College with honours, cum laude, working under the supervision of Dr. Ben A. Olsen on quantum simulations using ultracold gases. You can find out more about my work in the Research tab.
Outside of physics, I love playing guitar, dancing to hip-hop, shooting film photography, solving non-jigsaw puzzles, reading doorstopper-sized fantasy novels, playing board games like Terraforming Mars, and running tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons :)
Research
Building and testing a radio telescope
Download PresentationOne of the most important wavelengths for research in radio astronomy is 21cm. Galaxies are filled with neutral atomic hydrogen gas that emits strongly at this wavelength, making it an invaluable tool for research on nearby galaxies' structures, dynamics, and star formation rates. This wavelength is protected by international agreements but some countries are more zealous spectrum protectors than others. In this project, I make improvements to a small, portable, feed-horn style radio telescope in order to characterize the radio frequency interference (RFI) environment in Singapore near 21cm and to determine whether it would be useful to build a larger telescope on the Yale-NUS campus for teaching purposes in the future. Click here to download my presentation on the research
Spectrums around 1.4 GHz produced with VIRGO spectrometer
Read about 21-cm Radiation
Direct-Current electromagnet field simulations/design
At Yale-NUS College, Professor Ben Olsen has been steadily constructing a bitter-type electromagnet for future ultracold quantum gas experiments with alkali atoms. To enable to apparatus to conduct future experiments of varying types, it is required that the magnetic fields produced by the electromagnets msut be strong, quick, and flexible to different configurations. Example future experiments include probing exotic quantum phases of matter or studying many-body spin dynamics. To help achieve this goal, I am working with Professor Olsen in simulating various designs of a section of the electromagnets called the Bias and Curvature coils, the coils responsible for trapping near 0 kelvin alkali atoms for studying. I am charged with converting existing simulations in Mathematica into Julia code, whose quickness in scientific computation aids to our purpose of optimizing digital designs of the electromagnets before manufacturing. On top of simulating the magnetic fields, I am developing the code necessary to provide interactive and understandable visualizations of the geometry and currents of the electromagnets. The goal is to release developed code with documentation as to how to use such functions.
The initial render of the electromagnets in Matematica
Animation of building the current's simulated inside electromagnets
Read about bitter-type electromagnets
Curriculum Vitae
Find my CV here
Publications and Reports
Final experiment report on probing dental carries using light spectroscopy for Experimental Methods Class
Simple lab blurb for Physics of Electric guitar class describing how guitar pedals change the waveform of guitar sounds
Infographic with data-backed claims that climate change-induced tropical cyclone intensities will increase, having adverse effects on many ecosystems
Some other cool things!
I am available for private tutoring in mathematics and physics!
My first EP with songs that draw inspiration from the sky
Interesting reads!
Original musical made by friends for which I produced some songs
Interesting introduction to astronomy course I did with a berkeley professor the summer of 2019
My song about the M33 X-7 Black Hole Binary
(and other music)
