Exploiting Laser Threshold for High Sensitivity Biochemical Sensing
Microstructured optical fibres are a promising platform for biochemical sensing, offering small volume measurement and long interaction lengths.
There is ongoing research at the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) to further advance the sensitivity of these sensors to allow for single-particle, or even single molecule, detection.
This project aims to incorporate an exposed-core microstructured optical fibre into a fibre laser configuration. By finely tuning the in-line optical loss of the system the sensor can be operated very close to the laser threshold.
Due to the high nonlinearity of the laser threshold process very sensitive measurements can be made on biochemical binding events via the evanescent field of the optical fibre.
In this project you will learn important concepts on fibre and laser design, and experimental techniques on fibre handling (e.g. cleaving and splicing) and sensor development.
Supervisors
- Professor David Ottaway | Dr Stephen Warren-Smith | Dr Linh Nguyen
- Research Area: Optics, lasers and photonics - optics applications
- Recommended honours enrolment: Honours in Physics