Astrophotonic applications of ultrafast laser inscription

超快激光刻字的天体光子应用

• 批准号: ST/H005595/1
• 负责人: Robert Thomson
• 金额: $ 59.24万
• 依托单位: Heriot-Watt University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2010 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FH005595%2F1
• 关键词: Astrophotonic; applications; ultrafast; laser; inscription

Astronomy is on the brink of a revolution. Massive telescopes, such as the 42 m European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), are being planned that will enable astronomers to peer farther into the universe than ever before. The observations performed using these telescopes will be used to answer questions on topics ranging from dark matter to extraterrestrial life. The telescopes are just one part of the picture however, new instruments are required to analyse the light collected by them. Scaling up the old instrumentation technology would result in large and costly instruments and a re-think about how such instruments will be constructed is required. For decades, researchers have been developing compact photonics devices, the optical analogue of electronic devices, mainly for applications in telecoms. To answer some of the instrumentation issues, scientists and engineers are now investigating the possibility of applying photonic concepts to astronomical instrumentation. Thus, the field of astrophotonics has emerged over recent years - it has the potential to revolutionise astronomy. Unsurprisingly, the demands of astronomy are different from those of telecoms. For example, telecom devices have been finely tuned to operate over a narrow spectral region using light that is highly controlled in terms of its spatial properties. In contrast, astrophotonic devices will be required to operate over a wide spectral range and the spatial properties of light entering the device will change depending on the subject of observation and the weather conditions at the observatory. It is clear therefore that although astrophotonics can benefit from the experience of the photonics community; astrophotonics will require the development of entirely new photonic devices. Due to the unique requirements of astronomy it is envisaged that many astrophotonic devices must be three-dimensional (3D). Given that almost all current fabrication technologies are limited to the fabrication of two-dimensional planar devices this presents a considerable challenge. Over recent years a new fabrication technology, ultrafast laser inscription (ULI), has emerged that enables the fabrication of complex 3D photonic devices. ULI uses extremely short laser pulses, with temporal durations < 1.0 ps, to locally modify the structure of transparent materials such as glass. The induced modification manifests itself in a plethora of ways, examples of which include changes in the refractive index or susceptibility to chemical etching of the modified material. Using these manifestations, 3D photonic structures such as micro-optics, micro-mechanics and optical waveguides - which guide light in a manner similar to the way metallic wires guide electricity, can be directly inscribed in the material by translating it in 3D through the laser focus. ULI is therefore a revolutionary 3D photonic device fabrication technology that can be used to create 3D astrophotonics devices. The objective of this fellowship is to demonstrate that ULI is the most promising way to realise 3D astrophotonic devices. This objective will be achieved by developing three devices for targeted astronomy applications and using them for real observations on telescopes around the world in collaboration with astronomers. The first device is a new type of filter that will remove the light generated by the earth's atmosphere from the starlight captured by the telescope. The second is a micro-mechanical fibre-optic switch. This switch will be used on future telescopes employing thousands of optical fibres to capture the light focussed by the telescope. The third is a 3D photonic beam combiner which will be used to combine the light capture by multiple telescopes, dramatically increasing the spatial resolution of the obtained images. If successful, this fellowship will contribute significantly to a paradigm shift in astronomical instrumentation, opening the way to ground breaking discoveries about our universe.

天文学正处于革命的边缘。正在计划进行大型望远镜，例如42 m欧洲极大的望远镜（E-ELT），这将使天文学家比以往任何时候都更远地进入宇宙。使用这些望远镜进行的观察将用于回答有关从暗物质到外星人生活的主题的问题。望远镜只是图片的一部分，但是需要新的仪器来分析它们收集的光。扩展旧的仪器技术将导致大量且昂贵的仪器，并重新考虑如何构建此类仪器。几十年来，研究人员一直在开发紧凑的光子设备，电子设备的光学类似物，主要用于电信中的应用。为了回答一些仪器问题，科学家和工程师现在正在研究将光子概念应用于天文学仪器的可能性。因此，近年来，天体原则的领域出现了 - 它有可能改变天文学。毫不奇怪，天文学的要求与电信的需求不同。例如，电信设备已被精细调整为在狭窄的光谱区域中使用的光，该光谱在其空间特性方面受到高度控制。相比之下，将需要天体设备在宽光谱范围内运行，并且进入设备的光的空间特性将根据观测值和天文台的天气条件而变化。因此，很明显，尽管天体原则可以从光子学界的经验中受益。天体射击系统将需要开发全新的光子设备。由于天文学的独特要求，因此可以预见，许多天体设备必须是三维（3D）。鉴于几乎所有当前的制造技术都仅限于制造二维平面设备的制造，这带来了巨大的挑战。近年来，出现了一种新的制造技术，即Ultrafast激光铭文（ULI），该技术可以制造复杂的3D光子设备。 ULI使用极短的激光脉冲，时间持续时间<1.0 ps，以局部修改透明材料（例如玻璃）的结构。诱导的修饰以多种方式表现出来，其中包括折射率的变化或对修饰材料化学蚀刻的敏感性的变化。使用这些表现形式，3D光子结构（例如微启示，微型力学和光学波导）可以通过与金属线指导电的方式引导光，可以通过通过激光焦点中的3D转换3D来直接刻在材料中。因此，ULI是一种革命性的3D光子设备制造技术，可用于创建3D天体摄影设备。该团契的目的是证明ULI是实现3D天体设备的最有希望的方法。这一目标将通过为有针对性的天文学应用开发三种设备，并将其用于与天文学家合作对世界各地望远镜进行的真实观察。第一个设备是一种新型的过滤器，它将从望远镜捕获的星光中删除地球大气产生的光。第二个是微型机械纤维形开关。该开关将用于未来的望远镜上，该望远镜使用数千种光纤捕获望远镜的光线。第三是3D光子束组合仪，将用于通过多个望远镜结合光捕获，从而大大增加了所获得图像的空间分辨率。如果成功的话，这项奖学金将对天文仪器的范式转变产生重大贡献，从而为我们宇宙开辟了道路。

项目成果

Single Stage Ultrafast Laser Inscription of a Side-Polished Fiber-Like Waveguide Sensor

• DOI: 10.1109/jsen.2011.2168951
• 发表时间: 2012-05
• 期刊: IEEE Sensors Journal
• 影响因子: 4.3
• 作者: S. Beecher;R. Thomson;B. Pal;A. Kar

320 fs pulse generation from an ultrafast laser inscribed waveguide laser mode-locked by a nanotube saturable absorber

• DOI: 10.1063/1.3486177
• 发表时间: 2010-09-13
• 期刊: APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
• 影响因子: 4
• 作者: Beecher, S. J.;Thomson, R. R.;Kar, A. K.
• 通讯作者: Kar, A. K.

Stress-state manipulation in fused silica via femtosecond laser irradiation

• DOI: 10.1364/optica.3.001285
• 发表时间: 2016-12-20
• 期刊: OPTICA
• 影响因子: 10.4
• 作者: Bellouard, Yves;Champion, Audrey;Cheng, Ya
• 通讯作者: Cheng, Ya

Ultrafast laser inscription of mid-IR directional couplers for stellar interferometry.

• DOI: 10.1364/ol.39.004820
• 发表时间: 2014-08
• 期刊: Optics letters
• 影响因子: 3.6
• 作者: A. Arriola;Sebabrata Mukherjee;D. Choudhury;L. Labadie;R. Thomson

Multiplexed Single-Mode Wavelength-to-Time Mapping of Multimode Light

多模光的复用单模波长到时间映射

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1604.02495
• 发表时间: 2016
• 作者: Chandrasekharan H