Insights will be provided on the scale, growth and structure of the UK photonics industry. Comparison to other UK manufacturing and enabling technology industries and photonics globally will lead to identification of opportunities and essential strategy considerations for research and industry communities the post-COVID era.
On 11 November 2020, the UK Government introduced its National Security and Investment Bill ("Bill") into Parliament, which will significantly strengthen its powers to investigate and potentially prohibit transactions on national security grounds. The Bill contains a mandatory notification regime, backed up by criminal sanctions, for transactions in sectors thought most likely to raise national security concerns, and a voluntary notification process (underpinned by a "call-in" power) for other transactions that may affect UK national security interests. What will this mean in practice for the photonics industry?
Join John Lincoln, Natalie Wheeler, Richard Carter, Rob Richards, and Kasia Balakier as they present a vision for the future of photonics, identifying the key topics that will be the focus of research a decade or more from now. Based on the collective input of 26 of the UK’s leading photonics academics, 70 key topics are highlighted for future research focus across materials, optical and physical phenomena, future manufacturing processes, device and systems. This unique horizon scanning exercise, jointly published with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Photonics and Quantum, aims to stimulate engagement from government, funding agencies and industry to shape future innovation strategy and to inspire the next generation of researchers.
On 1 July, the Government published its ambitious research and development roadmap to ensure the UK is the best place in the world for scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs to live and work, while helping to power up the UK’s economic and social recovery and level up the UK.
Research and development are central to igniting the UK’s economic recovery, boosting productivity, creating new jobs and improving people’s quality of life.
This presentation provides an overview of the UK's research and development roadmap, discussing the background and a summary of what's included in each of the roadmap’s chapters.
With Brexit, Covid-19 and major focus on the importance of science and technology as a driver of economic growth, there have rarely been more exciting and interesting times for the innovation ecosystem in the UK. This session will look at the latest developments in the UK and Europe and will be an essential source of information for those from industry and academia looking to align themselves to the latest emerging trends and potential foci impacting future support.
What has been the practical impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the photonics industry and research in the UK?. Dr. John Lincoln, will present the results from two Photonics Leadership Group surveys from April and September 2020 capturing community feedback on the impact of Covid-19 on industry activity and academic research in the UK. The latest September survey includes the latest summary of community views on the impact a year from now.
The global Covid-19 pandemic has been hugely disruptive to our personal and professional lives. As we move into the recovery phase there are many new opportunities emerging within the numerous adjustments we are making. The panel will discuss the emerging changes to markets and ways of working and the opportunities they present for photonics, taking questions from the online audience.
We present a vision for the future of photonics, identifying the key topics that will be the focus of research a decade or more from now. Based on the collective input of 26 of the UK’s leading photonics academics, 70 key topics are highlighted for future research focus across materials, optical and physical phenomena, future manufacturing processes, device and systems. This unique horizon scanning exercise, jointly published with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Photonics and Quantum, aims to stimulate engagement from government, funding agencies and industry to shape future innovation strategy and to inspire the next generation of researchers.
A new class of Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) substrates have been engineered by exploiting both Photonic Crystal (PC) and semiconductor technologies. Gold coated inverted pyramids nanotextured substrates allow reproducibility <10% and enhancement factors > 106 over large areas. Modelling and optical characterization of the engineered structures is demonstrated. Examples of applications to amino acids and illicit drug detection are given. Concentrations as low as ppm-ppb (mg/mL to ng/mL) have been measured depending on the adsorbed analytes. Information on structure and conformation of the molecule is inferred due to the richer nature of SERS spectra.
Continuum Generation (CG) in optical waveguides has been recently attracting widespread interest in fields requiring large spectral bandwidth such as metrology and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). Real time and in-vivo tissue imaging with cell resolution (Δz<1μm) is rapidly becoming the ultimate frontier of several OCT medical applications. CG wavelength and bandwidth are the pertinent criteria to obtain ultra high imaging resolution. The axial resolution in tissues is inversely proportional to the bandwidth whereas the central wavelength is chosen according to the minimum absorption of water and hemoglobin. Therefore optimal candidates for OCT low coherence sources1 are continua around 1μm as this is the zero group velocity dispersion wavelength of water.
In this work we demonstrate for the first time a low-noise continuum at very low powers in high index planar waveguides pumped at 1.04 μm. Bandwidths in excess of 150 nm at -3dB are generated with launching energies <1nJ/pulse in a ~2μm2 single mode ridge waveguides pumped in the normal dispersion regime. Self-Phase Modulation (SPM) had proven to be the only nonlinear process responsible for the CG. The polarization of the generated continua is highly preserved. Great flexibility in engineering waveguide dispersion, mode matching and optical functionality on chip is demonstrated by the planar approach.
Ultra-high bandwidth continua generated by ultrashort fs pulses have
been attracting enormous interest for applications such as general
spectroscopy, Optical Coherence Tomography and metrology. Dispersion
engineering is one of the key aspects of optimised continuum generation in optical waveguides. However in addition, the dispersion
of the pump pulse can be continuously adapted to control bandwidth and spectral characteristics of the generated continua. In this work we report on a systematic investigation of how 2nd, and 3rd order dispersion affects the continuum generated in strongly nonlinear planar waveguides. A ~30 fs Ti:Sapphire tuned to 800 nm was used as a pump source delivering ~3 nJ pulses. The chirp of the pulses was controlled completely-arbitrarily by an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter (Dazzler). The power launched into the structures was kept constant to compare the generated continua as the pulse dispersion is varied. High refractive index tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) waveguides grown by standard silicon processing techniques were used. The devices investigated were specially designed tapered ridges with ~5 mm2 input modal volume and zero group velocity dispersion
at ~l - 3.7 mm. Self-phase modulation, which is responsible for
the spectral broadening of the continua, is tracked by finely tuning the both 2nd and 3rd order dispersions. The nonlinear propagation is dramatically influenced by the simultaneous presence of these dispersive effects resulting in a change of bandwidth and spectral shape. Pulse widths of up to Dl > 100 nm for launched powers as low as 300 pJ. Spectral peak intensity can also be systematically modulated by simply scanning the 2nd and 3rd order dispersion around their relative zeros. Specific combinations of high order dispersion contribution are currently targeted as a route to control and optimise the continua bandwidths and to control dispersion lengths in specifically engineered waveguides.
Ultra-high bandwidth continuum generation has been attracting enormous interest for applications in optical frequency metrology, low-coherence tomography, laser spectroscopy, dispersion measurements, sensor techniques and others. The acceptance of this new technology would greatly benefit from the availability of compact and user-friendly sources. High index planar devices provide a versatile and unique approach to continuum generation. The dispersion can be carefully engineered by choosing the material and the geometry of the waveguides. Optical integration can also be provided on the same platform. Hundreds of different waveguides having different and calibrated dispersions can be integrated in few tens of millimeters. Input and output of the 2D guides can be tailored to provide mode matching to fibers and pump lasers by means of single element bulk optics. In this paper for the first time we demonstrate a low-noise, ultra-high bandwidth continuum at 1.55 μm. A bandwidth in excess of 390 nm is obtained by launching energy as low as 50 pJ in a 12 mm short tapered planar waveguides. The pump wavelength was in the normal dispersion regime and was provided by a compact, fiber-based sub-100 femtosecond source.
The trivalent thulium ion is an interesting activator for silica fiber lasers because of the near infrared transition which is broadband tunable ( diode pumpable can be operated with photon conversion efficiencies greater than 100 and has yielded in excess of 1W output power when pumped by a cw Nd:YAG laser. The paper will review progress on this system and indicate some potential future developments.
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