Engineering of Plasmonic and Non-Linear Photonic Devices

This activity is focussing on the engineering of optical fibers and integrated optics at the micro and nano scale for nonlinear applications and development of plasmonic devices, with enhanced nonlinearity or increased sensing sensitivity. A number of rigorous numerical modeling, techniques like FEM (Finite Element Method) or FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain) are employed for the study and design of such photonic devices.

Different cases of promising photonic devices have been identified and studied. Indicatively there have been demonstrated results on nonlinear enhancement by ultra fine tapered optical fibres for Super Continuum generation for lasers development Also there have been studied plasmonic devices and nano-resonators on ultrafine tapered metal coated silica fibers for light nanofocussing that can find various applications such as in biosensing and Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering SERS based devices. Novel composite fiber based on metal core -silica cladding material system (in collaboration with ORC/Southampton) has been studied theoretically and engineered by means of fiber tapering for plasmonic and nonlinear applications. Also metal microspheres trapped in the silicate enclosure have been fabricated in a controllable manner during the tapering process and have been demonstrated as they can find applications as embedded microresonators in optical microfibers. Further to optical fiber platform extensive design and modelling studies have been performed on the design of customised micro resonators in non-linear materials such as Lithium Niobate, for application like Second Harmonic Generation in miniaturised integrated components.

Key Publications

Proc. SPIE 2015, 9347, 93471Y

Journal of Optics 2017, 19, 055002 

J. Phys. Chem. C 2018, 22, 26169

Materials 2019, 12, 1969

Journal of Optics 2017, 19, 095505