New EPSRC grant for developing new fibre technology

ORC Reader, Dr Yoonchan Jeong, has recently been awarded £100K from EPSRC to develop rare-earth-doped large-core photonic band gap fibre technology for power-scaling at challenging wavelengths.

During the twelve-month research project Yoonchan will work on novel generic fibre technologies to provide waveguide filtering within rare-earth-doped large-core photonic bandgap fibres. The technology will enable and improve a wide range of important fibre devices. However, Yoonchan will focus on one specific device – a neodymium-doped large-core photonic bandgap fibre laser. The laser will operate at around 900nm generating multi-ten-W average power levels. His goal is to break the current record power level in this spectral range.

If successful this project will lead to compact efficient and reliable fibre sources that could be used in the place of Ti:sapphire lasers in bio-imaging and targeting applications. After frequency doubling to the blue the new fibre could also be used for under-water lidar systems and large scale laser display systems.

Yoonchan comments: I’m very delighted to receive the fund from EPSRC at the perfect timing synchronised with the opening of our new state-of-the-art fibre fabrication facilities in the Mountbatten building. I believe this extensive twelve-month project will bring in a lot of synergies across various research areas on laser science and technology, which are invariably seeking laser sources operating in new spectral ranges.

In addition to this successful grant, Yoonchan has also been appointed as Associate Editor for OSA Journal Optics Express.