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H2020Individual fellowship2015–2017

SPAFIL · Structured photonics for advanced fibre lasers

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2015-07-06 → 2017-07-05
EU contribution
€195,455
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Structured photonics for advanced fibre lasers

Fiber laser are at the heart of modern photonic technology providing a platform for manufacturing, optical communications, sensing, healthcare, bio-medical and many other applications. Pulsed fiber laser enables cheap, efficient and flexible generation of high energy coherent pulses in a broad range of spectrum, high bandwidth and various pulseshapes. It is vital to improve our understanding of the dynamics of these systems and how they behave in order to fabricate better lasers. In addition, nanocarbon materials have been discovered to be excellent saturable absorbers. Saturable absorbers are nonlinear passive amplitude modulators used to initiate pulse operation in a laser system. Numerous approaches have been proposed for the integration of nanotubes in fiber systems, these approaches can be divided into those that rely on direct interaction (where the nanotubes are sandwiched between fiber connectors) and those that rely on lateral interaction with the evanescence field of the propagating wave. Evanescence field interaction was proposed to mitigate optically induced thermal damage and to enhance nonlinearity. Tapered fibers in particular offer excellent flexibility to adjust the nonlinearity of nanotube-based devices, but typically suffer from high losses and poor saturable to non-saturable absorption ratio. Fabricating low loss taper fibers will have a great impact in fiber laser technologies as well as other nonlinear fiber optic devices (such as wavelength conversion).

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

The key goals of the project are: (1) the training of a talented, independent researcher, Dr Amos Martinez, to become a successful leading scientist in the fast growing field of science, technology and industrial applications of fibre lasers, (2) exploring new ways to exploit two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, in photonics through femtosecond laser nanostructuring and developing new classes of light sources for applications in optical communications, medical imaging, industrial manufacturing and metrology. This multidisciplinary project has great implications on laser science, nanotechnology, material science and graphene technologies such as graphene plasmonics, metamaterials, phononics and electronics, and will involve both fundamental and applied research. The interdisciplinary training scheme is designed to enhance Amos’s expertise in photonics, strengthening his skills and helping him establish a research career in Europe. It covers component design and implementation, theoretical analysis, mathematical modelling and nanomaterial characterization. To assist Amos in reaching professional maturity and increase his exposure to academic and industrial collaborations, he will receive training on intellectual property management, funding and proposal writing, commercialization, business and finance management, and supervision and teaching. Secondments in academic and industrial co-hosts, with Prof. James R. Taylor (Imperial College, UK), Prof. Zhipei Sun (Aalto University, Finland), Xtera Communications (UK), Chromacity Lasers (UK) and Optoscribe (UK), are arranged to pursue scientific objectives, maximize Amos’s learning experience, expanding his network in Europe and maximising impact of research and training on EU industry. Exploiting his editorial experience at Nature, Amos will give seminars on effective scientific writing and engage with the public through outreach activities of the Physics Factory and the International Year of Light 2015.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union