CQT’s Tan Peng Kian receives Singapore National Award

Congratulations to our Senior Research Fellow on being awarded the Commendation Medal

Singaporean Tan Peng Kian took this selfie on a visit to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, United States, which has the motto “dare mighty things”.

On the occasion of Singapore’s 61st birthday, CQT Senior Research Fellow Tan Peng Kian has received the country’s Commendation Medal.

Also known as Pingat Kepujian, the medal is awarded for “commendable performance and conduct, or significant efficiency, competence and devotion to duty”.

The award was announced on 9 August, celebrated as Singapore National Day to mark the date of the country’s independence.

From stargazing

Peng Kian is an expert in quantum optics, working in the group of CQT Principal Investigator (PI) Christian Kurtsiefer.

Their collaboration began when Peng Kian was an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore studying physics. Inspired by his enthusiasm for astronomy, Peng Kian had an idea to use quantum techniques to observe the stars. He continued through a PhD to pursue the Hanbury–Brown and Twiss experiment, successfully detecting correlations between photons in starlight. He graduated in 2016 as his cohort’s valedictorian.

“What started as a student project has developed into a really nice line of research for our group,” says Christian. He admires that Peng Kian developed a network in the astronomy community that enabled him to make measurements at major international telescopes.

To remote sensing

The team has also adapted Peng Kian’s methods into a new kind of ranging technology that works by detecting photons one-by-one as they are reflected from distant targets. Peng Kian was the lead PI for a grant awarded under Singapore’s Quantum Engineering Progamme for work on “Optical Ranging Using Thermal Light”. Some results from the project, demonstrating range finding up to a distance of 1.8km, were published in Physical Review Applied.

“I consider myself incredibly lucky to make a living by turning ideas I love into reality,” says Peng Kian.