Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Mid-infrared sources are in demand for the identification and quantification of molecular species in gases, liquids and at the surface of solids, with applications for medical instrumentation, industrial processes, environment monitoring, and defence. Mid-infrared sources that are tunable, compact, robust, and with low power consumption would be key components within portable chemical sensors. In the past years, my research has successfully demonstrated the unique functionality of new designs of optical fiber sources emitting in the 1.5-2.0 um wavelength range such as optical parametric oscillators, wavelength converters, supercontinuum sources, and quantum communications sources. Chalcogenide glasses have been used for the fabrication of those sources because of their exceptionally high nonlinearity coefficient, enabling strong nonlinear effects to take place in a short waveguide and requiring low input power to operate. However, another important quality of chalcogenide glasses is their transparency in the wavelength range of 1.5-12.0 um, enabling the fabrication of optical sources emitting in the mid-infrared. In response to the high demand for mid-infrared optical sources and the strong potential of chalcogenide glasses in this wavelength range, within the next 5 years, my research program will target the development of mid-infrared optical sources that are broadly tunable, compact, robust, and with low power consumption.
The proposed project addresses a growing concern across Canada: developing monitoring and sensing tools for health services, environment, industry and defence. Photonics technologies in the mid-infrared are lagging behind near-infrared photonics (0.8-1.7 um) which benefited from exceptional market competition and activity in the telecommunication market. As a result, few sources are available in the wavelength range of 1.7 um and beyond. This project harnesses current photonics technology and a scientifically mature optical material, namely chalcogenide glass, to close important wavelength gaps in the market offerings.
Highly qualified personnel will emerge from this project. The graduate students will be specialists in mid-infrared technologies, a topic of great importance and holding many challenges for years to come. Sixteen students and PDFs will benefit from this opportunity.
As an extension to the project, compact and portable chemical sensors would have a major impact for medical instrumentation (e.g. blood, plasma, saliva, or breath analysis), environment monitoring (e.g. air and water quality, pollutants monitoring), industrial process control (e.g. combustion processes, chemical reactions, exhaust monitoring), and defence (explosive hazard avoidance, personnel protection), just to name a few.