TPCI - Materials Syntesis and Physical Chemistry

Greek

THEORETICAL & PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY INSTITUTE


	Photonics for Nano-applications
	Laser structuring and functionalization of materials and devices :: Laser micro/nanostructuring for smart surfaces, photonic and optoelectronic applications :: Development and applications of nanocomposite thin films
	The Short Light Wavelengths and Applications Laboratory :: Stimulus-perception laws of cells :: Complexity, hierarchy and biophysics of cancer cells :: Microwave spectroscopy, technology, and applications
	Optical Fiber Devices and Sensors :: Fabrication and hybridization of optical microfibers :: Hybrid Photonic Crystal Fibers (HPCFs)
	Applied Photonics-Materials & Devices - APMD :: Development of Low Cost and Autonomous Photonic Sensors :: Engineering of Plasmonic and Non-Linear Photonic Devices :: Planar Optical Components & Multifunctional Integrated Optical Circuits :: Photonic Engineering for Biomedical and Sensing Applications

Photonics for Nano-applications

Fabrication and hybridization of optical microfibers

Dr Georgios Kakarantzas, Senior Researcher

Hybrid silica nanowires are fabricated and characterized at the Photonics Laboratory. The Laboratory has a proven track record of low-loss deposition on silica tapered fibers. The Laboratory hosts a specially designed platform that incorporates the fiber tapering process (by heating and stretching) and the deposition and processing of sol-gel and polymer based thin-films. The processes of tapering and layering are motorized and computer controlled (see below). Real-time transmission spectra are also acquired for the monitoring of the whole fabrication procedure (tapering – layer deposition – annealing – packaging). Using this technique, we have demonstrated, in the past, very sensitive fiber sensors for sea water monitoring.

(a) Photograph of the fiber processing (tapering and coating) unit of the Photonics Laboratory of NHRF. (b) Schematic representation the fiber tapering rig and the modified dip-coating technique for coating fibers using a moving droplet. (c) Photograph of the moving syringe.

Optical microfibers embedded in PDMS for tuneable dispersion management

The thermo-optic effect of a polymer matrix has been used for fiber Group Velocity Dispersion (GVD) tuning for the first time. Our work extends the use of tapered fibers for GVD management since the interplay between the structural dimensions of the tapered fiber with the thermo-optic control of the surrounding refractive index provides extra degrees of freedom for fine, wide, broadband and reversible GVD control in tapered microfibers. Our proposed idea is very modular and it can be used as a dispersion management toolbox since two or more of these devices can be connected together to allow for versatile dispersion tailoring. This versatility in dispersion management can be of great interest for ultrafast fiber laser cavities.

Fiber dispersion measurement rig

A state-of-the-art, fiber based, Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) has been developed in our lab for fiber and waveguide dispersion measurements as shown below.

Key publications

Journal of Lightwave Technology 2020, 38, 4086

Proc. SPIE, Nonlinear Frequency Generation and Conversion: Materials, Devices, and Applications XIV 2015, 9347, 93471Y

Recent publications (since 2013)

Hybrid Optical Nanofibers

Fine, Reversible and Broadband Tuning of the Group Velocity Dispersion of Tapered Silica Fibers in a Thermo-Optic Polymer Matrix Journal of Lightwave Technology 2020, 38, 4086.
DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2020.2984595
All-Fiber Plasmonic Platform Based on Hybrid Composite Metal/Glass Microwires. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2018, 122, 26169.
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b08844
Hybrid silica nanowires with a highly nonlinear glass thin coating IEEE Proceedings of Spatiotemporal Complexity in Nonlinear Optics (SCNO) 2015, 1, 3.
DOI: 10.1109/SCNO.2015.7324005