"Progress in optical microfibre/nanowire based photonic devices from the ORC in Southampton UK and PRC in Dublin Ireland" Pengfei Wang

Speaker:
Dr. Pengfei Wang, Senior Research Fellow, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland

Seminar Title:
Progress in optical microfibre/nanowire based photonic devices from the ORC in Southampton UK and PRC in Dublin Ireland

Abstract:
Optical microfibre & nanowires have recently attracted increased attention because of their numerous applications in sensing and particle manipulation and their extraordinary optical and mechanical properties, which include, amongst others:
•biocompatibility: microfibre and nanowire show good compatibility with cells/biological matter as they are made from silica.
•configurability/flexibility: microfibre and nanowire are manufactured stretching optical fibres, thus they mantain their original size at the extremities, allowing for prompt connection to any fibreised source/detector.
•robustness: microfibre and nanowire are extremely strong and have a conventional fibre pigtail at their extremity, thus can be handled with tools typical of the macroscopic world.
• large evanescent fields: a considerable fraction of the transmitted power can propagate outside the microfibre/nanowire physical boundary when the microfibre/nanowire size is small, allowing for enhanced sensing and optical manipulation.
• strong confinement: when microfibre/nanowire are nanostructured and metal coated, light can be confined to 50-100 nm spot sizes, allowing for nanosensing and single nanoparticle trapping/manipulation.
A range of optical microfibre/nanowire based photonic devices at the Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton and the Photonics Research Centre, Dublin Institute of Technology will be introduced. The research outcomes of microfibre/nanowire, providing the potential for high performance optical sensors, other photonic devices and relative industrial applications will be presented in this talk.