Past Meetings
- Meetings
- 2006
- Apr 17, 2008, Rick Plympton
- Feb 21, 2008, Hatice Altug
- Jan 17, 2008, Mike Butler
- Mar 20, 2008, Giuliano Scarcelli
- May 15, 2008, William Rhodes
- Nov 15, 2007, Fiorenzo Omenetto
- Oct 18, 2007, Franco N. C. Wong
- 2008
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NES/OSA  Meetings Past Meetings
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Past Meetings |
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Feb 21, 2008, Hatice Altug |
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2007
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Nanophotonic devices for communication and sensingPhotonic crystal nanostructures open unprecedented opportunities for construction of novel photonic devices and integrated nanophotonic systems, due to their unique capability to manipulate light at sub-wavelength scales. In this talk, I will present my work on photonic crystals and their applications. I will show ultra-fast photonic crystal nanocavity lasers that can be modulated at speeds far exceeding today's state of the art semiconductor lasers. The ultra-fast speeds are due to the use of cavity quantum electrodynamics effects such as spontaneous emission rate enhancement. I will then introduce two dimensional coupled photonic crystal nanocavity arrays and show that they can reduce the group velocity of light by many orders of magnitude. In addition, I will show the implementation of these structures in active media composed of multiple quantum wells for low threshold and high power nano-lasers. These coherently coupled nanocavity lasers achieve dramatically higher power conversion efficiency with respect to other nanocavity lasers. Finally, I will present photonic crystal nanocavity sensors and discuss their integration with microfluidic systems for sensitive detection. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 25 January 2008 )
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Nov 15, 2007, Fiorenzo Omenetto |
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2007
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From a scarf to a lens- the beauty of silk optics Optical devices that are mechanically robust yet fully biodegradable and biocompatible are not available today. Such systems would greatly expand the utility of current optical platforms into a broader range of medical and environmental fields, areas currently limited to retrievable devices. A novel optics platform is described based on exploiting the unique mechanical and processing features of silk fibroin proteins. This system can be prepared in an all-aqueous approach, allowing the direct incorporation of reactive biological components in the devices to add selective functions, the materials can be prepared with optical clarity and with diffraction gratings for direct utility in optical detection modes, the systems are mechanically durable as tough biomaterials, and the systems will fully biodegrade over weeks to years depending on the mode of preparation. The successful demonstration of the bio-optical utility of these novel systems suggests entirely new windows of opportunity in environmental and medical sensor platforms that can not be met with current optical material and device platforms. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 October 2007 )
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Mar 20, 2008, Giuliano Scarcelli |
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2007
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Brillouin Confocal Microscopy The mechanical properties of biological tissues and biomaterials are closely related to their functional abilities; thus, measuring such mechanical properties non-invasively, in vivo, with micron-scale resolution, would have a wide range of biomedical applications. We are exploring an all-optical approach to this problem based on Brillouin light scattering. In Brillouin scattering, the interaction between incident photons and acoustic phonons inside a material leads to a tiny frequency shift in the scattered light. To measure such frequency shift, we have developed a high-resolution optical spectrometer with unprecedented detection efficiency. In addition, we have integrated the spectrometer with a home-built confocal microscope to allow the formation of images that use elastic properties as contrast mechanism.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 19 February 2008 )
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Jan 17, 2008, Mike Butler |
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2007
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A Spectroscopy Tale Just as holograms and diffractive optical elements are designed to take a monochromatic beam of light and create spatial patterns, in the early 1990s I started looking for a way to take a beam of polychromatic light and produce spectral patterns. Creating synthetic molecular spectra lead to a DARPA program to use correlation spectroscopy for remote chemical sensing. For this program MEMs programmable micro-diffraction gratings were used to make the spectrometer flexible. The participants were so excited about this technology that we made the big jump and started Polychromix. I will describe the technical path from this development in basic science to a novel spectrometer produce, the PHAZIR, a hand-held materials analyzer. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 January 2008 )
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