Nonlinear & Microstructured Optical Materials

1. Micro- and nanostructuring of nonlinear optical materials (with Dr Sakellaris Mailis)

Novel devices and technologies are emerging from the application of material structuring to existing nonlinear optical crystalline hosts. Ferroelectrics such as LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 which have found recent success in the field of periodic poling, can be domain processed to yield a range of nano- and microscale structures such as tips, cantilevers, and surface domain features. This project looks at the applications for structured ferroelectrics using a range of optical, and mixed optical/electrical routes to patterning such materials on the micron and sub-micron scale. Lasers operating in the c.w., ns and fs regimes are used for optical processing, at wavelengths from the UV to the near I.R.

2. Femtosecond laser processing of optical materials (with Dr Christos Grivas)

Within the ORC there is a dedicated ultrafast laser laboratory, called the FASTlab, and experiments are underway to use the unique optical properties of such ultrafast laser pulses for material machining, printing, grating writing, ablation and optical control of material properties. Specific applications currently being pursued include pulsed laser deposition of thin optical films, laser forward transfer of biological materials, volume grating writing in laser hosts, fs domain controlled patterning, and chemical laser processing for 3-d growth in enclosed geometries, via multiphoton absorption.

For a full list of PhD projects available at the ORC click here