Physical Optics

Focussing on adventurous and potentially high impact research in optics, quantum and physical electronics the groups’ current research includes three main areas.

• Fundamentals and applications of new optical materials with optical properties modified by strong electric and light fields including poling-assisted engineering of glass-metal nanocomposites and glass poling for all-fibre frequency convertors and electric-field sensors;
• Integrated technologies for quantum information processing and communication including quantum cryptography with poled optical fibres and integrated optics for atom detection.
• Fundamentals and applications of ultrafast laser material processing and photosensitivity including femtosecond laser direct writing of 3D photonic structures with new functionalities.

Group webpage

 

PhD Projects:

Supervisor: Professor Peter Kazansky

Nonlinear optics in optical fibres and glass waveguides
(Funding: EU CHARMING project)

The project explores the physics and applications of nonlinear optical frequency conversion in optical fibres and glass waveguides. Some of the main aims of the project are the fundamental study of poled glasses and fibres with large second-order nonlinearities and development of practical devices such as all-fibre and waveguide frequency doublers, parametric frequency converters and electric field sensors.

 

Integrated quantum optics

Quantum communication utilises quantum characteristics of light to accomplish communication tasks, which cannot be achieved by classical technologies. The projects aims to develop sources for non-classical light generation, based on nonlinear optical waveguides and parametric down-conversion in periodically poled fibres in particular.

 

Direct write of 3D photonic structures and advanced ultrafast laser material processing (Funding: EU FEMTOPRINT project)

High-power, high-repetition-rate ultrafast lasers enable the new technique of direct optical writing for patterning waveguides and nanostructures in three dimensions, to provide entirely new functionalities. Three-dimensional photonic structures will allow significant increases in the scale of integration in optical information processing and open tantalising possibilities in the fields of integrated optics and all-solid state lasers.

The project explores a variety of advanced ultrafast laser material processing techniques, the ultrafast physics of femtosecond photosensitivity and applications of 3D photonic structures.

 

Nano-composite materials for photonic applications
(Funding: EU NANOCOM project)

Recent advances in nano-photonics and bio-sensing have been based on the ability to fabricate complex plasmonic nanostructures with enhanced and controllable optical properties.

Both individual plasmonic nanostructures as well as their arrangements attract significant attention due to their potential to control light interaction with molecules and various objects and to provide artificial photonics properties for light guiding and manipulation.

Recently, thermal-electric-field treatment technique has been developed as an efficient tool for modifying optical and structural properties of glass embedded with noble metal nanoparticles.

The project explores the physics of enhanced interaction of light with glass-metal nanocomposites and applications for novel bio-, chemical and environmental sensors and other nanophotonics applications.

 

3D micro- and nano-optics by femtosecond laser
direct writing (Funding: EU FEMTOPRINT project)

PhD position is available in the field between femtosecond laser direct writing and nanostructuring of optical materials on recently funded by EU project FEMTOPRINT.

This project involves 8 partners across Europe including 3 universities and 5 companies/research centres. The project aims developing an advanced femtosecond laser-based printing technology for micro-/nano- systems fabrication.

The research involves fundamental study of interaction of ultrashort light pulses with optical materials, in particular, recently discovered self-assembled nanostructuring of transparent materials by femtosecond direct writing and its applications for nanofluidics, bio-templates, and complex diffractive optical elements.

The use of a femtosecond laser light to directly write structures deep within transparent media has recently attracted much attention due to its capability for writing in three-dimensions. Tight focusing of the near-infrared or visible high-power sub-picosecond light pulses into the bulk of material causes non-linear absorption only within the focal volume, depositing energy that induce a permanent material modification and refractive index change.

A crucial advantage of using ultrashort pulses relative to longer pulses is based on the fact that the electrons can acquire significant energy from the pulse before transferring the energy to the surrounding lattice (on the timescale of picoseconds), which can result in highly localized laser-induced material modifications. It has been also observed that structural modifications of wide-gap dielectrics exposed to intense infrared femtosecond pulses can be confined to submicrometer-sized regions. This idea has been applied to the three-dimensional optical storage, and to the formation of photonic crystals and waveguides in a variety of glasses. Although molecular defects caused by such intense irradiation have been identified in fluorescence, ESR and other studies, the mechanism of induced modifications in glass is still not fully understood.

The key objective of this project is to explore new fundamentals and develop practical technology for ultra-dense optical integration using femtosecond laser direct writing based on our recent discoveries and world-first demonstrations.

The majority of time will be spent conducting novel research in our state of art ultrafast laser laboratory. A comprehensive range of techniques for the micro/nano-scale characterization is also available for the project including, among others, AFM, SNOM, micro-Raman, micro-spectrometer and holographic microscope.

The PhD student will benefit from the extensive experience of our group, which is at the forefront of the research into material modification by light (e.g. micro-machining of dielectrics by ultra-short pulses laser direct-writing) and by electric field (e.g glass poling and electric-field assisted dissolution of nano-particles) for almost two decades.

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