Our group operates one of the only university-based plastic draw towers in Europe. Using this tower we fabricate microstructured plastic fibers for use as waveguides at both optical and terahertz frequencies. We work on sound, pressure and biosensors using these fibers, on supercontinuum generation, and on compression methods for generating the shortest femtosecond pulses ever observed from fiber lasers.
The fibers we manufacture are so-called microstructured fibers, which means that they have an ordered array of tiny holes surrounding the fiber core. The hole structure forces the light to be guided in the core and determines the properties of the fiber, which allows to achieve tremendous design freedom and exciting novel properties.
Our optical fibers have holes as tiny as a micron, or smaller than a human hair. Nevertheless we can do bio-chemical reactions inside the holes and use them as biosensors to sense, for example antibodies and DNA. Other main applications are: sound, stress, and temperature sensors, and we are currently developing industrial fiber-optical microphones and accelerometers.
Another focus area is nonlinear optics, in particular the study of supercontinuum generation in microstructured optical fibers, through which a laser pulse is spectrally broadened (meaning that it develops many colours) inside a microstructured optical fiber to become brighter than the sun, yet still as powerful as a laser. The microstructured optical fiber is essential to obtain a powerful and bright supercontinuum, because it can be made very nonlinear and have precisely tailored pulse propagation properties.
We also work on novel nonlinear methods for generating ultra-short few-cycle fs laser pulses in the visible and near-infrared (VINIR) regimes, in the project Femto-VINIR. The pulses must be generated with low-cost and stable equipment, such as high-power fiber lasers and the pulses are compressed in a single quadratic nonlinear crystal. Few-cycle pulses can be used for ultra-fast pump-probe spectroscopy, micromachining with nanoscale precision, nanosurgery, biomedical purposes (e.g., virus-inactivation of blood), and for generating broad-band frequency combs.
Our main Danish industrial partners:
- Koheras A/S
- Crystal Fibre A/S
- Bioneer A/S
- Brüel & Kjaer Sounds & Vibration Systems A/S
- Ibsen Photonics A/S
- DPA Microphones A/S
Our main university partners: